


Friday the 13th: Legacy of Camp Blood

by LittleMissGeek8



Series: Shadow of Camp Blood [1]
Category: Friday the 13th: The Game (Video Game)
Genre: Character Death, Eventual Fluff, F/M, Slow Burn, Suspense
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-30
Updated: 2018-02-22
Packaged: 2018-12-21 22:00:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 12
Words: 55,526
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11953506
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LittleMissGeek8/pseuds/LittleMissGeek8
Summary: For Deborah Kim, it was just a summer job, meant to get her through another year of college. But lurking below the surface of the lake lies the reason they call Camp Forest Green "cursed." Now, with no way out, Deborah must rely on her wits, her fellow counselors and the intriguing young man who answered their distress call in order to survive.The key to survival may yet lie in the mysterious past of their rescuer, but will it be enough to stop this cycle of death? The legacy of Camp Blood lives on, and not all will survive this night.





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: This story is based heavily off the recently released 2017 Friday the 13th: The Game, and as such plays perhaps a bit loose with continuity, and particularly location. Likewise the characters are based off my own interpretations of them, due to the game-specific characters not having much canonical personality. The story itself is still in progress, and updates may be slow but I have somewhat of a buffer before it gets to where I currently am in the writing process. Any feedback or comments you can give are always welcome, and I hope you enjoy the story!

**Prologue**

A chilly breeze rustled the branches of the trees and tiptoed over the surface of the lake beyond, leaving dark ripples in the water painted silver by moonlight. Around the beach, the songs of hidden crickets broke the otherwise silent night. Their high-pitched chirps were nearly loud enough to mask the sound of liquid spilling and the muted curse that followed. Every second out on the dock felt too open, too exposed. The moon was too bright, the air too quiet, too still even with the breeze. Finally the last drop of gasoline trickled into the engine, and Tommy Jarvis straightened up with a sigh of relief.  
    

He'd already checked the hull for leaks and repaired the engine. Old and rickety though the speedboat was, it was a chance of survival. As he turned to walk down the dock back to the shore, going back to inform the others of the repair, he realized something.  
    

The crickets had stopped singing.  
    

For a moment his footsteps stopped, his heart pounding in his chest and his breath catching in his throat. And that moment was all it took. Behind him was a mighty splash of dislocated water, and the dock quivered as heavy boots landed on it. Before Tommy could move at all, too-strong hands shot out, grabbing his arms in vice-like grips. Panic overwhelmed him, filled with memories of the first time he'd been grabbed this way, years ago when he was only eleven. The hands gripping him were wet, and with a mighty struggle, he pulled free, taking a few steps away as he turned to face his attacker.  
    

Looming overhead, larger than life, stood a dark human shape. Clad in black with rotted skin, one gloved hand clutching a long, sharp piece of wrought-iron fence like a spear. And above it all --drawing the eye like a beacon-- a white hockey mask, almost glowing in the bright moonlight. His old nemesis-- Jason Voorhees.  
    

Again, the gloved hand shot out-- just one this time, the empty one-- grasping his throat from a distance that Tommy would have sworn impossible. His fingers clawed against Jason's huge hand, trying to free himself as he was raised off the ground. The edges of his vision began to cloud as he struggled for air, blood pounding in his ears. Then, with a force that made the dock shake, Jason slammed him down on his knees, pulling back the spear to strike. Gasping for breath, paralyzed in fear, he watched the sharp pointed tip come ever closer until...

* * *

  
With a full-body lurch, Tommy woke. No Jason, no lake, no dock. Just him, his darkened room, and a roaring headache. He relaxed back against the pillow, heart and head pounding. The only light filtering through his windows was pale and muted, filtering through the trees outside-- clearly not dawn yet. What time was it anyway? He couldn't have been asleep long, he didn't feel nearly rested enough, but now he was far too alert to sleep. Groaning, he rolled to one side, fishing on the bedside table for a nearby lamp. With a tug of the pull-chain, warm golden light flooded the corner of the room, revealing a barely-used glasses case tucked behind the clock. Sleepily Tommy groped for the case.  
        

The glasses inside were not a fashionable model, rounded with thick plastic frames and badly un-flattering to his long face, but the frames had been cheap and he couldn't complain. He rarely used them anyway. Clumsily Tommy settled them on his nose and turned his gaze to the clock by the bed. Nearly 2 am. Definitely not enough sleep, but better than some nights.  
    

He'd dreamed of Jason for years, ever since he was a child, but the dreams had always been different. Fragments of things he'd experienced or read about, or just twisted verions of places he knew well. But lately his dreams had changed.  
    

Now, each dream had been nearly the same each night-- arriving at Camp Crystal Lake to stop Jason from preying on the counselors there, and each night ending in him jolting awake just before he met his grisly demise at the hands of Jason Voorhees. They all played out differently, even down to Jason's appearance. Always tall and broad and terrifying, but sometimes more rotted and corpse-like, other nights more human-looking in ratty-looking overalls and a bag tied over his head. The worst nights, the mask seemed to be almost part of his face, or he loomed charred and smoldering, with a trident in hand and flaming pits behind the mask where his eyes should be.  
    

In the light of his bedside lamp, the inky tendrils of the nightmare were fading, but feeling of heavy hands on his arms still lingered. He needed more sleep, the weary ache drifting through fingers and toes and pressing against his head let him know that clearly. However, like always his brain had other ideas. Thoughts, feelings, emotions, all jumbled together in a ball of confusion swirled in his brain, made up of effectively everything and nothing at the same time. The sudden awakening had set his heart beating a little faster and caused a tangled knot of worry to sit in his stomach.  
    

With a soft groan, Tommy sat up. Much as he needed sleep, it wouldn't be coming for a while tonight. It had been hard enough getting to sleep in this heat without an overactive brain and nagging anxiety, it would be almost impossible to sleep until it subsided. He leaned over the end of his bed, fishing up a light, button-up shirt that he tossed on over his boxers, not bothering with the buttons. If he couldn't sleep, he might as well be busy. On barefoot feet he walked over to the desk across the room, flicking on the desk lamp and pulling out his tools. One of these days he'd get this radio working again; it might as well be tonight.


	2. Chapter 2

"Are you going to hold that blanket forever, or are you going to help me finish this bunk?"

Deborah Kim's shoulders twitched involuntarily as she realized she hadn't been moving. With a sheepish smile she held the blanket out across the bed. "Sorry, AJ. I was just trying to make a mental note of all the chores we have to finish." She crouched down to tuck in her side of the bed as neatly and carefully as possible.

AJ Mason shrugged, tucking her side under with brisk precision. "It's the heat. It's getting to all of us. I'm surprised Kenny isn't out of his mind with people spacing out or taking twenty-minute-long 'Breaks.'" Deborah giggled a little as she stood up. Kenny Riedell, their head counselor, was a really nice guy all things considered, even if she'd only known him about a week. But even she'd noticed that slight nervous eye twitch he got when certain counselors slacked off. Notably Mr. Privileged himself, Chad Kensington.

The sound of the door across the room opening drew both of their attentions. "Oh dear, Mr. Riedell, I can't possibly put these first-aid kits in the cabins. I might sweat on my $2000 shirt!" Vanessa Jones leaned dramatically against the partially open door, one arm flung up across her forehead. Her imitation was far too high-pitched and whiny to truly sound like Chad, but it got the point across without a problem.

"We've only got one more day to get ready, and the camp isn't made of money!" AJ replied in an exaggeratedly deep voice.

"Just ask my father for a loan! My family's rich, if you couldn't tell!" Vanessa pretended to adjust an invisible sweater around her neck, and AJ swaggered back at her, tugging on the top of her skirt like it was a pair of baggy cut-off shorts. All three burst into laughter, leaning against whatever desk or nightstands they could find to keep from falling on the floor.

Deborah got a hold of herself first. "Something up, Vanessa? We're just about done with this cabin.

"Nah, Kenny's got me checking on everyone, that's all." She winked and unclipped the water bottle from the waistband of her tracksuit. "Looking for slackers. Mind if I sit for a few minutes? It is way too hot to be running around outside like this."

"Suit yourself, I won't tell Kenny," AJ responded, heading over to the next bunk. "He's nuts for having you running around in this heat." Vanessa laughed.

"Beats bunk duty or chopping firewood for the meeting tonight. Or listening to Chad whine."

Deborah unfolded another blanket and shook it out. "I think it's supposed to rain tomorrow sometime, hopefully it'll be cooler once the kids get here."

"Yeah, hope so. I kinda regret wearing my track suit today," Vanessa said between sips of water. She drained the last mouthful out and shook the bottle a bit. "I gotta hit the caf on the way out of Blairs, I need a refill." With a loud, exaggerated groan she stood up from her chair. "Oh yeah, Kenny'll have my head if I don't check before I go. You guys getting enough water over here?"

AJ pointed at the plastic water bottle on the desk nearby. "I've got mine. Where's yours, Deb?"

"Um..." Deborah fluffed up the pillow in her hand before putting it on the bed. "Hang on." She walked out of the room for a moment, coming back with a shiny metal bottle. "I forgot it in the other room."

Vanessa shook her head with a frown. "Don't go getting dehydrated, Debbie." She planted her hands on her hips and puffed out her chest. "I don't want to write anyone up until after the campers arrive," she said in an exaggerated Kenny voice. Deborah giggled sheepishly.

"I'll try not to, I just need to stop losing my water bottle."

Vanessa double-checked the bottle on her hip before doing a few stretches. "Well, I should get going, gotta get back up to Higgins camp before Kenny sniffs me out." She opened the front door to the cabin, before looking back over her shoulder. "Oh, by the way Deb, Eric wanted me to tell you to head over to Evergreen when you have a chance. Something about you needing to know how to work the CB or whatever, I didn't catch it."

A small smile crossed Deborah's face. Vanessa was a bit too loud and never slowed down, especially to pay attention to something she thought was boring, but at least she tried a bit. "I'll be over once we're done with this cabin, it's the last one that needs attention over here." Vanessa shot her a thumbs up, before taking off out the door. They could hear her sneakers slap against the pavement as she left.

AJ sighed, giving the beds a once-over before picking up her water bottle. "Thank you, Hurricane Vanessa. I think we're about done here, you want to head over to Evergreen? I can finish up anything we have left."

"You sure?" Deborah asked, but she was already picking up her water bottle and checking her pockets to make sure she hadn't dropped anything again.

"Yeah, it's no problem. I like the quiet anyway." Liking solitude wasn't anything new to Deborah, either. It could be hard sometimes keeping up a lot of the louder, more enthusiastic counselors like Vanessa or Buggzy. Knowing AJ, though, as soon as Deborah left, out would come the walkman and headphones.

She shrugged a bit. "Okay, AJ, I guess I'll head out. Um... have fun?" Deborah hoped the cringing she was doing inwardly didn't reflect on her face.

"Yeah, seeya. Don't let Lachappa talk over you too much!" As she left the cabin, Deborah glanced back over her shoulder. Yup, headphones and walkman, right on cue.

* * *

 "...Now this is a newer model, much more high-tech than the old 23-channel 3.5 watt radios. It's got all 40 channels and with that antenna we can reach Forest Green without any signal degrading at all! And that's without shooting skip at all, which of course is illegal and you shouldn't do it." Eric J.R. Lachappa abruptly pushed his glasses further up his stubby nose, as if trying to change the topic he himself brought up, and looked over at Deborah. Somewhere within his fifteen-minute-long explanation of the history, mechanics and operations of CB radios, Deborah had mentally checked out and returned to her internal list of things that needed to be done before the camp opened. It wasn't entirely surprising either that Eric had completely failed to notice that she wasn't listening. Just as she could lose herself in thoughts and fail to see what was going on around her, Eric never seemed to notice that people seemed to wander off during his explanation of all things mechanical.

"-It's all very impressive, Eric, but I do need to get back to work before Kenny starts wondering where I went. Can you give me the information I need in layman's terms?" It felt wrong interrupting him, he was so animated and excited talking about it and Deborah could just see her mother shaking her head at her daughter's rudeness.

"Oh! Well, we don't want to get in trouble, do we?" Eric said, clapping his hands together. "Basic operations. Set the channel with this dial here, the indicator on the front shows which one you've got." Realizing that it was actually useful information this time, Deborah grabbed a nearby pocket notebook and began to write it down. "Channel nine is your emergency channel; I doubt we'll need it but it's there just in case. Channel 19 is usually reserved for travellers or trucking. The other channels will be used mostly by hobbyists probably, you won't need them."

There was a wand-like microphone attached to the set and he picked it up. "This is your mic, you talk into this when you call. Don't put your mouth on it, it's plenty hot; unless you're across the room it should pick you up. Press the call button down and hold it until you're finished, like a walkie-talkie. If there's other people on the line, wait until they pause and say 'Break' so they know you're there. Okay?"

"That's everything?" Debora tapped her pencil against her chin, before erasing a few words and writing them tidier.

"Should be. There's a whole barrel of codewords the experts like to use, but this setup is just for emergencies really. I can bring in an operations book on Monday-"

"-No, that's okay!" She didn't want to sound like she was eager to get away but well... if you got Eric talking on a subject he liked, you could be there for literal days. "I can always ask you if there's something I don't understand! And it's getting late, we should be getting back to the lodge!" Eric nodded with a smile, oblivious to the rushed way she was talking.

"Okay, see you there! I've still got some things to pack up here," he said, switching off the radio, then straightening up to wave as she left the small side hallway that the radio was tucked into. There was a nice big room beyond with a couple of armchairs and a couch, and as soon as she closed the door to the hall she sagged against it with a sigh. She really did have to get back up to the lodge, but she felt a little bad using it as an excuse to leave. Eric meant well, she just found him overwhelming at times.

The outside door swung open and a young woman with an open, cheerful face framed by lightly curling brown hair peeked in. "Oh hi, Deborah! Kenny wants everyone to meet at the lodge ASAP, can you let Eric know?"

"Can _you_ do it, Jenny?" Deborah asked, sliding off to the side of the door to get out of the way. She dropped her voice a bit, hoping to not be overheard from the other rooms. "I just got away and I like my ears on my head where they belong, and not talked off onto the floor."

Jenny Meyers laughed and shook her head. "Okay, I'll let him know. If you'd like to wait I'll walk back with you?" It wasn't far to the area with the big lodge and barn, but it would be nice to not have to make the trip on her own.

"Sure, I'll wait!" Jenny nodded and smiled as she poked her head in the door and called out the message, waiting for a distant "Okay!" before closing the door again. Then the two left, heading out along the forested paths towards the lodge.

Deborah idly ran her fingers along the rough wood of the map board as they passed it. "You know, I think Eric might like you a bit? He's not so talkative around everyone else." She pulled her hand away sharply at Jenny's words, almost as if she'd encountered a splinter from her sentences.

"He just likes the fact that I listen, that's all. Or at least try to. Sometimes..." She lowered her eyes, not wanting to look over at Jenny. Even if Eric had a crush on her, she didn't like him that way back. Someone else had already caught her attention-

"Wasting your time, Jen, Deborah only has eyes for _the Chad_ ," a sing-song voice called out, as the rhythmic slap of sneakers came up behind them. Seconds later a brown-haired girl in a midriff-bearing pink shirt and extremely short denim Daisy Dukes jogged past. "Isn't that right, Debbie?"

Blood shot to Deborah's face, coloring her cheeks a bright shade of pink. "TIFFANY!" She hunched down, pulling her head low and her shoulders high as if she could disappear into her oversized sweater like a turtle. "Don't _say_ that out here, what if he hears?" Tiffany Cox leaned against a nearby section of fence and lazily snapped her gum.

"So what if he hears? There's only two possibilities- he laughs it off and everything goes back to normal, or he sweeps you off your feet and onto his yacht, right?" A pink bubble of gum ballooned from Tiffany's mouth for a few moments, before she popped it and went on chewing. "He _does_ have a yacht, right?"

By this point, Deborah's face was half-buried in her sweater neck. "It's the first option I'm worried about. I don't want him to laugh at me." Small whimpery noises escaped her throat as she looked at the taller girl, her eyebrows pinched up over too-damp eyes. The thought of telling someone, especially Chad, that she liked them was the most terrifying thing she could imagine.

"That's enough, Tiff," Jenny said, placing a hand on Deborah's shoulder. "There's no way Chad could hear anyway, he's off at the lodge with a 'heat headache' I think. I hope he's better behaved once the kids show up, or else we'll have more work dodgers for sure."

Tiffany scoffed from her spot by the fence. "Chad? No way, he's totally gonna rub off on the kids. Ya' better team him up with someone like Adam or we'll have a cabinload of lazy brats. At least Adam might be able to run damage control." They'd only been working here a week and already Chad had gotten himself a somewhat deserved reputation. His family was rich, his clothes were expensive, his hair impeccably styled, and his work ethic was non-existent. And despite it all, Deborah couldn't deny he was attractive, in that same unobtainable way one swoons over the latest, hottest movie star. He'd never notice her with her glasses and unfashionable clothes and hair too straight to put in the current fashionable styles. Unless he decided her Korean background was exotic enough for a summer fling, that is, but that wasn't really what she wanted.

She wanted _romance_ , maybe something exciting too but definitely she wanted it to last longer than a single summer. And with Chad's attention span and the way he'd fainted dead away when Buggzy cut himself chopping wood the other day, "lasting" and "exciting" were probably off the menu.

The girls had started walking again, the conversation gradually shifting over to discussions of the upcoming camp opening when they reached the barn. Predictably, Adam and Kenny were attempting to keep Brandon "Buggzy" Wilson from injuring himself yet again.

"Get down from there, Brandon! The loft isn't safe!" Even from the fence around the barn entrance, Deborah could see the tension in Kenny's neck. "I don't want to have to keep a log of your injuries, it's been hard enough getting this camp ready to open as it is! If you're not down in ten minutes I'm writing you up!"

The three girls craned their necks to look up, and sure enough, Buggzy's bright red-and-white varsity letter jacket could be clearly seen in the loft doorway. "Nah, man, it's all good! I got this!" Holding onto the loft doorway with one hand and a thick rope tied to a ring at the end of an old hay winch, Buggzy leaned out over the barnyard. "Sweet! I can see all the way to the old graveyard from up here!"

Off to one side, a tall young man with long shaggy hair and a leather jacket covered with buttons and pins and studs shook his head. "Buggzy, c'mon out of there, dude. Kenny's gonna bust a blood vessel and it's gonna get all over me."

"Y'gotta check out this view, Adam! Major rush up here!"

"Major trouble if you fall and have to go to the hospital. C'mon, dude, we got pictures to take!"

"Oh, that's right! The pictures!" Tiffany gave Deborah's sweater sleeve a tug. "Let's jam, I want to touch up my makeup before we do that!" With a wave at the guys (which only Adam returned, Kenny and Buggzy being too preoccupied to even notice) they turned their steps towards the big lodge ahead.

* * *

 Somehow, surprisingly, the counselor photos all went off without a hitch. Even Buggzy managed to be there and in one piece, once Kenny and Adam managed to talk him down. The shadows were long by the time all the pictures were finished. All that was left was the final counselor meeting before they were free to leave. The team split up into two groups; Kenny, Buggzy, Eric and Chad headed down to the campsite at Stillwater to make sure it was set up and the fire was lit, while the ladies brought the food down, along with Adam and a counselor Deborah barely knew who together carried the heavy cooler with the drinks and hot dogs.

Toting along bags with potato chips, Deborah snuck a peek at the dark-haired young man. She wasn't bad with names, why couldn't she remember his? Honestly she'd never spoken to him, and he didn't interact that much with the others, just followed whatever he was told to do really. Something in the back of her head whispered that his name started with a "R," but she couldn't remember.

Well, she had all summer to find out his name anyway.

The meeting itself was routine. Kenny checked in with all the groups of workers from the day, went over safety precautions one more time -just in case someone had forgotten or the rules had changed in the last day or so- refreshed everyone on the rules, and finally went over the schedule for the upcoming week. By the time he'd finished, the majority had finished their suppers or were picking at the last bits while they waited.

"Okay, I've talked enough for tonight." Kenny slid his clipboard under his chair. "It's our last night of freedom before the kids get here on Monday! Let's have some fun!"

"FINALLY!" came a chorus of about four voices, Vanessa included as she dramatically threw her arms up towards the darkening sky.

"Save room for s'mores!" Deborah called, holding up the bag of marshmallows after having already loaded up her stick with one.

Adam scoffed nearby. "That's kids sh-," he muttered, but took the bag once she'd set it down, and forced three onto his hotdog stick, holding them over the fire until the white outsides began to turn black.

"So what now?" Tiffany asked, sprawled across a log she was using as a seat. "I mean, I'd like to have _some_ fun today. We could go up to the lodge to, I dunno, play cards?" An impish twinkle crossed her face. "Or _something else_?"

"Well, we've got a campfire, don't we?" AJ chimed in. She'd been silent almost the whole time, so everyone turned to look at her once she started talking. "We could tell ghost stories." A small smile crossed her face as murmurs of agreement spread around the circle. Everyone seemed interested, save Chad whose face had gone a shade paler and his mouth was twisted up into an odd shape.

"Does anybody actually know any ghost stories?" Eric asked, looking a little nervous himself, though definitely not so strange as Chad. A deviously wicked smile crossed Buggzy's face, and he leaned closer towards the fire as if about to share a secret.

"I know a story," he began with a grin. "They say it still lurks around in the Pine Barrens.."

A charred, squishy marshmallow flew through the air and hit him solidly on the left side of his face. "Don't you even start with that Jersey Devil stuff again, Buggzy!" Vanessa called from across the firepit, rising out of her seat in irritation. "That is a _load_ of bullsh- and you know it! It's not even real!"

Buggzy was on his feet too, wiping hot gooey marshmallow off his face. "It is too!"

"IS NOT!" Vanessa stepped forward, ready to vault the campfire to shout in his face.

"SIT DOWN, BOTH OF YOU!" The bickering stopped and all stared at Jenny, shocked to hear her bellow that way. Guiltily, Vanessa and Buggzy sat down again. "It's our last night here before the kids arrive on Monday, let's not have any bloodshed over a legend!" Her cheeks were slowly going back to their normal color from the pinkish shade they'd gone when she yelled.

Vanessa huffed, leaning back in her chair and crossing her arms across her chest. "Does anyone else - besides Buggzy- know any ghost stories, or is this going to be the most boring campfire ever?"

From his seat closest to the cabins, Kenny cleared his throat. "Well... there is one. But I will warn you, it's not for the faint of heart."

"Chad better leave right now then," Adam mumbled behind his hand, prompting a very nasty look from Chad. One look from Jenny shut them both up, thankfully.

Kenny settled into his seat, leaning forwards with his elbows resting on the arms of the flimsy chair. As he spoke, his husky voice took on a smoother quality, one reserved for telling tales. "You know, there's a legend about this camp. Or, more specifically, the lake. Camp Crystal Lake used to be further around the lake, way over there." He gestured out towards the water and the shore beyond. "There was a family that lived nearby, the Voorhees family. Now, Mrs. Voorhees worked as a cook for the camp back then, and her son Jason would come to the camp with her while he worked. But that's when tragedy struck.

"You see, Jason was an odd looking child and people weren't as accepting of that back then. There was a lot of bullying that went on behind the counselors backs, and one day those same bullies chased him right off the docks and into the lake. But Jason couldn't swim. The counselors who should have been on duty for such problems were ditching work for some alone time." Kenny shot a pointed glance at Chad when he mentioned the counselors not doing their jobs.

"Nobody ever found Jason's body. For years afterwards, however, the camp seemed cursed. The very next year, two counselors were found dead, stabbed to death with a knife. And every time after that, whenever the camp tried to re-open, parts of the camp would mysteriously burn down. One year the water went bad. Soon, the locals began to call it Camp Blood. They tried to reopen it again in the seventies, but nearly the entire staff was killed in one night, and all by one woman. Mrs. Voorhees had been trying to keep the camp closed all those years, and that fateful friday night on June 13th, the last counselor killed her with a machete. Chopped her head clean off."

There were a couple of cringes around the fire, Chad included, and Deborah shivered even with the heat from the fire and the warmth of her sweater. "According to the legend, however, Jason didn't die. He lived, surviving in the wild on what he could hunt, gather or steal. By that point he was a grown man. And they say he saw his beloved mother beheaded that night, and vowed revenge. And revenge he got, on as many people in Crystal Lake as he could. Around thirty people were slaughtered in an astonishingly short amount of time, and the last thing they saw was an expressionless white hockey mask." Kenny raised a finger, a smile playing around the corners of his mouth. "But you know, as terrifying as he was, he could still be beaten. I'm going to tell you what I was told, and you can believe it or don't. The terror only ended when he was finally killed himself, before he could murder the entire town. And by a kid no less, a kid scared and angry enough to save what little family he had left."

Buggzy scoffed and muttered something under his breath that if Deborah was the type who was prone to gambling, she'd wager it was exceptionally rude. Kenny waved his hands. "It's how the story goes, you don't have to believe it. But supposedly Jason didn't stay dead. Nobody's really sure how, but he crawled back out of that grave and he wasn't too happy about being in there in the first place. Maybe he got bored of being dead, or maybe it was some unholy miracle, but years after he died he got back up and went after the people around here in Forest Green."

Kenny stood up, waving his hand slowly towards the water. "The legends say Jason was sunk in the water out there, back to the place he drowned as a boy. That he's still out there, waiting, listening. Angry. That he'll be back again someday, back to kill any intruders in his woods." Deborah leaned out of her chair after the bag of marshmallows she'd put nearby, hoping her hands weren't shaking as visibly as she feared. Scary stories weren't exactly her thing, though she'd never been very vocal about it. But she knew she'd have nightmares after this.

"Wait." Tiffany held up a hand. "Do you hear that?" There was a soft splashing sound coming from the lake behind them.

"Frogs," Kenny said immediately, but Tiffany waved him off.

"It's not frogs, Kenny, it's too quiet." She was right, Deborah realized. The summery chirps of frogs and crickets had stopped, leaving the lake eerily silent. Everyone leaned a bit towards the lake, trying to peer past the moonlight surface to the inky depths below. For a second, Deborah thought she saw movement, but shrugged it off. Fish, probably.

Suddenly, something broke through the surface, a shadowy figure covered in muck and grime. Firelight glinted off water dripping from a bright white mask, a dripping machete in one of the figure's hands.

The shouts and screams from the counselors shattered the silence, but only for a second. There was laughter underneath it. Vanessa was the only one who hadn't jumped out of her seat in fear, and now she was practically falling out of it, with tears running down her face as she laughed.

"We got you guys SO! GOOD!" she crowed, standing up. "C'mon Rob, take the mask off! It's just Rob!" He obliged, grinning back at Vanessa. A wash or relief spread over the group as they returned to their chairs with sheepish chuckles. Of course, it was just Rob and Vanessa pranking them. Deborah felt simultaneously embarrassed that she'd forgotten his name earlier and completely humiliated that she'd been just as scared as the rest. Of course it was just a myth, why wouldn't it be? A serial killer in the lake was completely ridiculous, after all, right?

Abruptly, a strange feeling set in over her as she sat down, like an out-of-body experience. It was as if time was slowing down around her. Rob was just stepping past Deborah's chair when there was a sound like a shrill wind, and suddenly he was falling. A horrible gurgle escaped his throat before a loud thud echoed through the camp. For a moment nobody moved. Nobody breathed. The mirth was gone from everyone's face as they stared in horror at the slim knife sticking out of his back, buried deep into his heart and the spreading dark stain growing around it. Cold horror flooded through Deborah's body as she stared.

"I-is he..." Tiffany whispered, but they all knew the answer before she even opened her mouth. Chad, who hadn't even sat back down from the first time he'd stood up in panic, was the first to scream, and suddenly chaos reigned. All the counselors scattered. Everything they'd had with them at the campsite was left forgotten in their blind panic to get as far away from the lake as they could go. With the half-empty marshmallow bag still in her hand, Deborah spun to face the lake, and for a moment she caught a glimpse of the white edge of something slipping back under the water.

With fear clawing at her back, Deborah fled with the others. She knew exactly what she'd seen, even if it was just a second.

A white hockey mask.


	3. Chapter 3

The heat of the day had vanished as the sun sank below the horizon. A chilly mist hovered across the surface of the lake, spreading slowly through the campground. It twisted cold tendrils around Deborah’s arms, seeping through the fabric of her sweater to brush against her skin.

Deborah Kim shivered from her hiding place, crouching in the shade of a large tree, half-buried in some gnarled shrub. The last few minutes had been nothing but confusion and fear as she’d run as far away from the campsite as she could. She barely knew where she was now, even though she knew the layout of the camp by heart. Somehow it felt different in the dark, the shadows draping themselves around every tree and cabin. Again the slight breeze brushed the mist through her sweater and she hunched up closer, shivering even more.

Her hiding spot, which had felt so comforting for a few moments, now made her feel exposed and vulnerable. Cautiously she began to move, unhooking the little branches of the shrub from her sweater before standing. She didn’t  _ hear _ anyone or any _ thing _ about, but that didn’t really mean anything anyway. Nobody had heard Jason before, after all. Not until it was too late. 

Her glasses had slid down her nose as she crouched, and she slid them back up her nose as she carefully examined her surroundings. Not too far away, only a few seconds away if she jogged a bit, was the outline of a cabin. A warm golden light shone over the bright red door at the rear of the cabin. Safety. With one last glance over her shoulder, she took the chance and darted to the door as quickly as she dared. 

All of the cabin doors in the camp opened inwards, and she nearly flung it open too hard as she entered. Fortunately she was quick enough to stop it before it knocked against the cabinet behind it, but the force smashed her knuckles into the cabinet instead. Deborah bit back a yelp of pain. She couldn’t be sure who was lurking nearby. The thought of someone sneaking around outside the cabin made her shoulders tense up, and she quickly shut the door behind her and pulled down the heavy wooden barricade. Then, she darted across the room, heading for the front door and barring it too for good measure.

A tiny blossom of hope sprouted in her heart as the wooden bar slid into place. It was easy to convince herself that nothing had actually happened. That she’d been dreaming, or maybe it had all been just a prank. Slowly she stepped away from the door, towards the soft glow of a desk lamp across the room. Just a prank.There was no “Jason,” no hockey mask, no danger. Any second now, Rob would show up and wave the fake knife around.

Midway across the room, Deborah stopped.  _ You should be ashamed of yourself, _ a little voice in her head said. It wasn’t just a prank and she knew it. What she’d seen was as plain as day, and right beside her too. The hockey mask in the water, that might have been a trick of the light maybe. Something she’d  _ wanted _ to see so that it all made sense. But Rob? She could still see him falling, still smell the scent of blood in the air.

Her hands flew to her head, clamping over her ears as she knelt beside one of the sofas in the room. She squeezed her eyes shut, hoping to block out the images, the sounds; blot out the terror that choked the hope from her heart. It was just supposed to be a summer job, to help pay for her next year of college. Nowhere had any of the registration information said anything about a murderer in the lake. Her mother and father and grandparents across the state would be so worried when she didn’t come home…

_ No! _ Deborah gritted her teeth and slammed her fists into her thighs. That was  _ quitting _ . She was still alive, still healthy, still sane. All alone in a cabin at the edge of the camp, sure, but that was no reason to give up. Even if it took every last ounce of strength she had, she wasn’t going to let Jason kill her or the others.

With a determined stare, she stood up and shook her head, telling herself once again that she couldn’t just quit. These cabins were filled with supplies, with things that she could use to defend herself if she needed to. She just needed to look. Glancing around the room, Deborah began to make a mental list of the things she might need.

_ A flashlight, for starters _ . There were dozens of flashlights around the camp, always a couple in each cabin. If Kenny were here he could point her to where exactly they were kept, but right now she was on her own. Still thinking, she walked to the desk in the corner and began hunting through the drawers for a flashlight and batteries.  _ I need to find something to use as a weapon-- _ The drawer sounded so loud in the silent room that she froze as she opened it, listening for any sounds that she was discovered. Nothing. She glanced in at the contents. Paper, envelopes, stamps… nothing useful. She slid it closed and checked the others.

_ How much paper does one camp need? _ She wondered to herself as she closed the third drawer in the desk. The fourth drawer, the one on the top left, yielded much better results. Inside was tucked a couple of little black walkie-talkies. All the counselors had carried one all week, but they’d all put the walkie-talkies away before the campfire tonight. Regardless of whose these were before, Deborah needed one. She took the top one out of the drawer and clipped it to her belt for safe keeping.

_ I should probably find a map, just in case _ , she thought, adding it to her list. Then she took a slow walk around the room, looking for anything that could be a weapon. It had never occurred to her how many things could possibly be used as weapons before, and the thought for a moment made her stomach turn. The fireplace pokers could do in a pinch, of course, but she wanted something a little sturdier. At the moment, however, she couldn’t see anything more usable. There was, however, another little end table tucked away into a corner with two drawers on the front. It was close to the door and when Deborah checked it, sure enough there was a selection of flashlights inside. She grabbed one and tested it out, before clipping it onto her belt and taking a few spare batteries from the drawer below.

Two items checked off her list for now. The rooms were laid out like a capital T, with the large front room being the crossbar and a central hallway separating two long rooms on the sides. One of the rooms she’d already been in when she entered the cabin, and a second glance confirmed what she remembered-- nothing much of note in there. On the other side, however, was the entrance to the little bathroom, and inside there was a first aid box. Almost all of the cabins had one, Kenny insisted on it.

She considered taking it with her for a minute or two, but the box was bulky and it would probably make noise as she moved. Instead, Deborah left the door open and the box in plain sight-- it might save someone’s life. The last place she looked was in the dresser at the back of the hall. Most of the drawers were empty, waiting for campers to put things inside, but she found a stack of maps in one of the top drawers. This she tucked into her pocket before walking back into the main room. 

With no other options for protection, Deborah picked up the fireplace poker. It would do in a pinch, she supposed. Then she pulled out the map and walked over to the window, checking the cabin layout with the pictures on the map to get her bearing. One cabin directly west of her current location. One cabin to the north, one northeast, with a small campsite in the middle… she was in Evergreen. The cabins she and AJ had been assigned to were across the river in Blair's Cove, so she’d spent very little time over here during the week. This had been the guys’ territory-- mostly Eric and Adam and Buggzy.

_ Wait a second. Eric _ . She’d been up here just that afternoon to talk to him, and learn how to use the CB radio to call for help. In fact.. She poked her head into the room that lead to the bathroom at the end and sure enough, there on one side was the radio. The table it was on was tucked against a window and somehow she’d overlooked it in her hurry.

Gingerly she turned it on. The instructions Eric had left with her seemed so long ago, and in her worried state she could barely recall anything. There was something about the dial controlling the channels, wasn’t there? And there was an emergency channel, but which one it was she couldn’t remember. She fiddled with the dial for a second, wishing that there was someone else who could call instead of her. Who knows what kind of person would be listening in? It was hard enough to hold conversations with her friends, let alone strangers.

Eric had said to hold down the button and talk into the microphone. “Hello?” she said timidly, pressing the button down and leaning in. Almost certain that her first attempt was too quiet to be heard, she tried again. “Hello?” No reply, but maybe they were waiting on the other end, she couldn’t remember the protocol that Eric had tried teaching her. A faint creak sounded in the other room, and anything keeping her from speaking fled in a wave of panic. “Oh God, someone help us! Jason’s  _ real _ , and he’s killing my friends! Someone help us! We’re at Camp Forest Green, at Higgins Haven! Please, help us! Bring a gun!” She let go of the button and waited for a response.

Nothing.

Her breaths were short and verging on hysterical. Desperately she switched bands and tried again and again, repeating roughly the same message each time and getting no response. Frustrated and afraid, she stepped back. The more she tried to call for help, the more likely it was that someone would hear her, but it also meant that Jason might overhear as well. She’d already made plenty of noise with all the frantic calls, he might already be on his way to the cabin!

Deborah darted for the main room and ran to the front door, but paused for a moment with her hands on the barricade. Better to leave the barricade in place, honestly, the house was safer this way. There were plenty of windows around the room, and all of them opened enough that someone her size could easily slip out. She slid open the nearest window and climbed through, turning her steps towards the cabin west of her. 

It was a much smaller cabin, with one room in front and a short hallway surrounding an off-center room on the side. As soon as she entered, she barred the doors like she had for the first cabin. Overall, it was mostly empty, with a few beds and a desk, but mostly a lot of boxes. A storage building, obviously. However, one trunk by the interior wall had an abandoned baseball bat lying on top of it. Buggzy must have been through here at some point and left it behind, she figured. Still, it was nice solid wood, and could easily be useful for protection. She picked up the bat and left the poker behind. 

The desk drawers proved to be completely empty, and she was just about to check the chest of drawers on the back wall when a branch snapped nearby. Deborah’s heart leaped into her throat, half-choking her as she froze. The sound had come from right outside the cabin! All the brave determination she’d found earlier vanished like smoke in a windstorm. She dropped to her hands and knees, crawling back behind the desk as silently as she could with the bat tucked up under one arm. It was in the middle of the room and worryingly conspicuous, but she was small. Maybe if whoever that was got in, they wouldn’t see her.

Deborah crawled over to the desk, shimmying underneath and tucking her knees up to her chest. Then, she waited. The only sounds were her own breath and heartbeat, filling her ears in the deafening silence. From outside, along the wall that her back was against, she could hear footsteps. Loud footsteps. She clamped her mouth shut, trying to keep her teeth from chattering.

The door rattled in its hinges from across the room. Whoever was outside wanted to be inside, and they were making a lot of noise about it too. Hugging the bat close, Deborah tried desperately to be as small as possible, hoping whoever it was would just give up and go away.

* * *

_ Burning eyes, like pits of fire stared at him from the holes of the charred hockey mask, holding him transfixed. Rough, hot hands grabbed his shoulders and violently spun him around. Before he could even catch his balance, there was pain in his head-- sharp, agonizing pain, and a voice calling for help… _

Tommy jerked awake, nearly falling off his chair. He’d fallen asleep at his desk again, and that pain he’d felt was his brain trying to relay that he was resting his head on the handle of his screwdriver. Gingerly he rubbed the spot, he’d slept so deeply that there was a faint indentation in the skin.

As he did so, he realized the voice calling for help  _ hadn’t _ only been in his dream. Several years ago he’d owned a CB radio, back when he was only a kid. After the tragedy that had shattered his life back then, the house and radio had been left abandoned. Trish couldn’t stand to live in the house anymore with all the bad memories, and Tommy had been shipped off to a hospital for years to get over his trauma. Once he got out, however, he needed someplace to live, and even after he’d put Jason back to rest in the lake, he couldn’t bring himself to leave. 

The house had needed some work, of course, having been left empty for so many years. Thankfully his father had been willing to loan Tommy some money to get it livable again, and Tommy was more than happy to take on the job of fixing up the house. By now it was almost completely fixed up, but it had seemed a shame to not fix his old radio as well. It was almost fixed, Tommy had figured, but there were still a few things that needed adjusting, and he wanted to be sure it picked up all the channels. That was how he’d come to fall asleep with his head on a screwdriver, with the radio left on. And someone was on the other end.

“--son’s real, and he’s killing my friends! Someone please help us!” It was a girl’s voice, and for a moment he wondered if someone was horsing around with their personal radio. However, something about the desperation in the voice made him pause and listen closer. “Does anyone hear me? It’s  _ Jason _ , he’s here at Camp Forest Green, over at the Higgins lodge! Help us, please! Bring a gun!” 

Any grogginess from Tommy’s unexpected nap vanished, and he sat up straighter. The old Higgins house was close by, just a short drive by car. A cold tingle spread through his chest even as his heart started beating a double-time staccato beat. It couldn’t be. Jason  _ couldn’t _ be back. He was sunk in the lake,  _ chained _ to the bottom. Jason should be at  _ rest _ . And still Tommy doubted; Jason had returned from death once before, what was to stop him from coming back again?

There was no time to think. If Jason was really out there, these people would need any help they could get, and who else was as much of an expert on Jason Voorhees than Tommy himself? The cloudy night had brought a chill to the air, and Tommy grabbed his denim jacket from where he’d casually tossed by his bed. A set of keys for his truck jingled in the pocket, and he slipped a Swiss army knife into the pocket of his jeans for good measure. A half empty, stone cold cup of coffee sat on his desk and he downed it in one long gulp. He needed the caffeine tonight.

Then, he raced out of the room and down the stairs. An old, single-shell shotgun was tucked away in the corner of one of the living room-- he hadn’t found a better place for it yet. He’d never used it, actually, it was something that had been kept around “in case of bears” for a long time. Tommy grabbed it, and a nearly empty box of shells from a nearby drawer, and fled outside to his pickup truck, tossing the gun on the seat behind him and roared off into the night, leaving the cabin door unlocked behind him.

* * *

 

The noise at the front door hadn’t stopped. In fact, it had actually gotten louder. Before it seemed like someone was just rattling the doorknob and pushing against the barrier. Now, Deborah could hear the sound of something slamming into the door a few times. Once, twice, followed by a much louder  _ thump _ . 

Then the noise stopped.

Deborah shrank back further under the desk. That sound, or lack thereof, could mean just about  _ anything. _ The worst part was not knowing anything because the lack of information caused Deborah’s mind to race to fill in the blanks. The person at the door could have been  _ anyone _ . It could have been one of her fellow counselors… or it could have been Jason. And the silence made her uneasy. Maybe it was Jason out there, and he’d gotten distracted by someone else? She didn’t dare crawl out to check, in case that’s exactly what he wanted her to do. And if it was one of the others, why did they stop?

_ Did she even want to know? _

She clung tightly to the bat, then took a deep breath and held it. Her heart was pounding in her ears, she was shaking all over and the last thing she wanted to do was make noise by whimpering. Still, the faintest of squeaks managed to get out as she trembled in the darkness under the desk.

The thumping returned, this time at the back door. Again, the one, two,  _ thud _ combination. Whoever it was seemed to give up much quicker this time.  _ Maybe they’ll move on? _ Deborah thought, trying to hold onto some shred of hope. Even if it wasn’t Jason at the door, the person there was loud enough that he’d  _ obviously _ find them. Again she waited in silence, hoping that the person had left and that she’d be brave enough to actually leave her hiding spot sometime tonight.

Then, the window nearby rattled. This was much,  _ much  _ worse than the doors, because the window was right next to her desk. And it was hard to tell from a most likely sensationalized legend whether or not the killer in question had a habit of climbing through windows. The glass panes rattled against each other as the window was thrown open, followed by the sound of feet thumping on the wooden floor inside. Deborah was turned the wrong way to see, and honestly she’d only seen a glimpse of what she believed was Jason anyway. She probably couldn’t identify him if her life depended on it.

The sound of footsteps came closer in her direction, and whoever it was stopped just a few feet from her hiding place. Moving as slowly as she dared, she craned her neck to see if she recognized anything. She could just about see a pair of jeans around the desk, but not much else. Then, the person came over and stopped right in front of the desk.

She highly doubted anyone who’d spent time rotting in a lake wore such nice (and probably expensive) tennis shoes as the ones that had stopped just inches from her feet.

Her suspicions were confirmed when the shoes moved again, only for the person to duck down and look right at her. “Deborah Kim? What the f--- are you doing under there?” The whimper she’d been trying to hold in burst out all at once in a shrill, sharp noise.

Gasping for air, she blurted out in a harsh whisper, “Buggzy? How did you know I was here?” Buggzy rolled his eyes a little and reached a hand down for her. Reluctantly she let go of the bat with one shaky hand, before letting him pull her up to a standing position.

“I  _ didn’t _ know you were here, I came back for my bat.” He pointed to the one in her hands. Deborah looked from him to the bat and back again, before handing it over to him. “But I kinda guessed someone was hiding under the desk when I came in.” Buggzy smirked. “That desk you were under was dancing all over the floor.”

The nerves that Deborah had built up released in a shaky, embarrassed laugh. “Oh. I didn’t realize I was making noise.” The longer she laughed, the more it began sounding like it was on the verge of tears. 

“Nah, it wasn’t that noisy. I was making  _ way _ more noise than you.” 

“But what if Jason--”

“I doubt he even knew you were in here, Deborah,” Buggzy insisted. “‘Sides, I haven’t seen him at all, not since the firepit. If that even  _ was _ him.” He absently smacked his palm with the bat. “I mean, it’d be just our luck to get a copycat.”

Deborah had been wringing her hands a bit, trying to settle her nerves somehow, but she glanced up at his face for a second. “Why are you so upset about the possibility of a copycat? I mean, a murderer is a murderer, right? He’s probably going to try to kill us even if he’s not some kind of immortal zombie weirdo.”

Buggzy looked at her and smiled, the kind of smile that was more malicious than joyful. “Man, it’d be boring if he was human. Nah, I want to actually get to see a real, live cryptid!” He swung the bat into the palm of his hand again, the sound making Deborah flinch. 

“A  _ cryptid? _ ” she asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Yeah, y’know, like Bigfoot or Nessie or the Jersey Devil!” He grinned. “But just seeing one is boring. Everybody wants to just  _ see _ one. I want to  _ fight it _ .”

Deborah paused a second to stare at him. “You want to  _ fight _ the Jersey Devil.” She wasn’t really  _ trying _ to sound skeptical but it came out in her voice. Buggzy, however just laughed it off.

“Yeah! C’mon, people send in photos to magazines all the time with photos of bigfoot or something, but who can say they got to go toe-to-toe with him?! You have to admit that would be  _ sick _ \-- you okay, Deb?” Buggzy paused to look over at her. Deborah had taken a few steps over to a cot set up in the cabin and sat down on it with her feet on the mattress and her knees pulled to her chest. She looked a little odd, honestly, a little too pale and she looked like she was struggling to sit still.

“I-- I dunno,” she replied, her voice shaky. “It’s all overwhelming and..” She shook her head hard. “Buggzy, Rob’s  _ dead _ . I didn’t know him very well, really, but he’s  _ dead _ . And I don’t know if whoever’s out there is really Jason or not but-- you’re talking about all these probably fictional creatures and there’s a  _ real _ threat out there  _ right now _ . And--” Her voice broke, cutting off whatever she was going to say.

In almost every situation in his life, Brandon “Buggzy” Wilson oozed confidence and a cocky, devil-may-care attitude. But something in Deborah’s words hit home, and for once it wasn’t all a thrill ride. Plus, she looked like she was about to cry, and that was something he wasn’t too sure how to deal with. He started to reach out with his free hand, then pulled it back with a lopsided grimace. “Look, okay, I’m… I’m sorry, okay Deborah?” He sighed. “We-- We’re gonna get out of here, okay? I mean, did anyone even think of calling the police?”

Her head came up from her knees. “Of  _ course! _ Why didn’t I think of that?” She sat up a little straighter and swung her feet off the bed. “It’s just down at Stillwater! That’s only a few minutes walk!” Buggzy waved his hand towards her with a grin.

“See? You’re over there ready to give up and we’ve still got tons of options! C’mon, I’ll walk over with you.” He took a few steps back to give himself some room and swung the bat at the air in front of him. It was a strong swing, and Deborah felt a little better already. She stood up, and stepped over to the last dresser in the room.

“Let me just look through here and see if there’s anything useful.” Most of the drawers were empty or had a few useless items in there, but she found a stash of walkie-talkies in the middle drawer and tossed one over to Buggzy. “Just in case. And maybe the others will find some too.” Buggzy caught it easily and stuffed it in the pocket of his letter jacket.

“Okay, anytime you’re ready. We can watch each other’s backs.” He headed over to the window, waiting for Deborah to pick the fireplace poker she’d dropped back up. Then, one after the other, they climbed out the window, and began to follow the winding trail south to the cabin at Stillwater Camp.


	4. Chapter 4

The trail down to Stillwater Camp was a little precarious in the daytime, but traveling down it by moonlight was downright nervewracking for Deborah. It was steep, with a sandy, gravelly surface, and the soles of her shoes kept sliding at random intervals as she walked. Luckily there were logs embedded in the trail to prevent falling all the way down, but she was already tense before they were even close.

Neither she nor Buggzy talked much at all. Something about the stillness of the woods along with the very real possibility of dying horribly made talking feel unwise, as if at any moment they could be overheard. At last, the trail evened out and Deborah cast a nervous look over at the abandoned campfire at the water's edge. Someone should really put it out, but already the previously large bonfire was dwindling down to embers. And honestly Deborah didn't really want to chance seeing Rob's body again. The house with the phone was further west, anyway. Buggzy started down the trail to the back door, but something caught her eye. Silently, she reached out and grabbed the sleeve of his jacket, tugging him along to the back of the long cabin.

There was definitely something wrong with the phone box.

"Is it _supposed_ to look like that?" Buggzy whispered. Deborah shook her head and crept closer. The little light at the top of the box that normally glowed faintly blue was now blinking an angry red. Even more noticeable was a slash through the metal of the box.

"The wires have been disconnected," she whispered back, pointing at a group of black wires hanging loose around the top of the box. The metal on the box itself looked hot and there was no way she was risking touching it. Instead, she picked up a nearby stick and poked at the door. It swung open easily, belching out a bunch of pale grey smoke. Both Buggzy and Deborah covered their mouths and noses as best they could, waving the smoke away from their faces.

"Is it fixable?" Buggzy's whisper was muffled from behind his hand. He got a shrug in reply from Deborah, before she started inching closer to look. With the smoke making it hard to see and breathe, she didn't want to get too close, but she made sure she got a good look inside before crawling back.

"The fuse is useless, it's been cut in two. We need to replace it."

" _Great_." Buggzy frowned. "Well, f- that."

Deborah shook her head. "No, there's got to be a replacement. You can't think Kenny would let this camp open if he didn't have a replacement for everything that could break or get lost, do you? We've just got to find out where he put it."

Buggzy shrugged. "Well it's gotta be in the cabin, right? The fuse box is right outside..."

"I'd ask Kenny but who knows if he even has a radio," Deborah answered. "We could spend half an hour searching that cabin and find nothing at all. It should be close but I don't know where..."

That's when the lights turned off in the cabin in front of them.

Buggzy stepped back with a startled cry, while Deborah just clasped her hands in front of her chest. It wasn't just one light, it was all of them, including the lights along the road and, upon further looks, the lights at the cabin by the docks. All of the lights, and all at once. That meant only one thing- someone had cut the power.

"Where's the generator?" Deborah asked, "I was over in Blair's, I don't know the area well..."

Buggzy swore and gritted his teeth. "Over by the docks. That means he's gotta be close!" He started to jog towards the door but Deborah grabbed his arm again.

"No, that's the first place he'll look! He's got to know the phone's important! The cabin back at Evergreen is all locked up, we can hide there for a bit and come back when he's gone!" Her whispers were urgent but they carried an undeniable amount of sense. Neither of them knew _what_ Jason was capable of. Being cautious was the best plan they had at the moment. Buggzy sighed, his shoulders sagging dramatically, before heading back to the trail at a jog. Deborah scurried to keep up while not tripping or stabbing herself with her poker.

Gym had always been an easy class for Buggzy, but it wasn't so for Deborah. She'd much preferred studying English or the Humanities in school. By the time they neared the cabin that they'd left only a short time ago, she was already starting to get winded. Thankfully the window was close to the back of the cabin, and Buggzy waited for her to get through first. The jog over hadn't tired him at all, so the least he could do was play lookout while she climbed through.

The lights were out in this cabin as well, since the generator covered the entire eastern side of the camp, both Stillwater and Evergreen. The only light was from the moon outside, which seemed exceptionally bright tonight. Deborah scooted along the wall away from the window, with Buggzy following close behind. She tucked herself up against one of the bookshelves on the wall, trying to get her strength back and convince herself at the same time that nothing was hiding in the shadows.

There was a very good chance that Jason hadn't seen them as they went back to the cabin; he was all the way over by the docks, after all. He wouldn't come searching for them here, and Deborah comforted herself with that idea. They just had to wait for a while and he'd probably move somewhere else. It had to be boring standing around and waiting for people to come to a single cabin. She sighed, the soft sound feeling much louder in the relentless silence of the night. The moonlight from the window dimmed, and Deborah turned to look. And nearly screamed.

There, at the window, silhouetted in the moonlight on the ground, was an absolutely immense figure. It dwarfed the window, and luckily didn't seem inclined to try crawling through it. But the shadow stretched out across the wooden floor for several long seconds, glancing from side to side across the area it could see. _Listening_ , she assumed. Then, almost as quickly, the shadow was gone.

"Do you think he saw us?" Buggzy whispered, as soft as he could manage without becoming completely inaudible. Before Deborah could answer, they heard the sound of something hitting the door. It wasn't the dull thump thump of someone kicking the door like Buggzy had done, this was sharp and harsh- the sound of splintering and cracking wood. Deborah gasped, shrinking away from the direction of the sound. The wooden doors were sturdy here, but could they keep out someone- somet _hing_ like Jason?

Abruptly, Buggzy stood up. He tossed the baseball bat in his hand, staring ahead with a determined look. "Okay, Deborah, get ready to run." Deborah stared at him like he'd grown horns and asked her to jump off a bridge. "Look, _somebody_ needs to find that fuse, right? I don't even know what it looks like, and I _know_ I can't fix that phone. But I know how to use a bat. I'm gonna go get his attention, you use that distraction to get away, deal?"

Deborah stood as well, shaking her head. "You're going to get yourself _killed_ ," she hissed, her fear making the words harsh.

Buggzy reached into his pocket and pulled out a closed pocket knife, the moonlight glinting off the red handle. "I got protection. Now, you get ready to sprint once I've got his attention, I'm gonna draw him off towards the lodge. Get as far away as you can." Reluctantly she nodded. Buggzy wasn't about to listen to her, that was clear. He gave her a thumbs up and hopped out the window. For a few seconds she didn't hear anything, until there was a heavy _crack_ sound by the door. For a moment she thought the door had broken, until she heard Buggzy shouting a challenge.

The smashing of the door stopped, followed by more shouting. Then, running feet and a heavier, thudding walk following. Then silence again. Worry clutched at her heart, but she couldn't go chasing after them. Trying to fight or outrun Jason would be the same as suicide for her, and it would be wrong to let Buggzy's efforts go to waste. Instead, she hopped out the window and took off for the northernmost cabin in the ring as fast as her legs could run.

The cabin was up by the end of the road leading to the camp, just a short walk as it were. It wasn't a big cabin really, only two rooms with a flimsy wall in between and two doors leading between the rooms. She flung open the southernmost door, then closed it behind her, leaning against it while she caught her breath. It had been pure adrenaline driving her along across the small campsite in the center of the ring of cabins, and now her arms and legs felt like jelly. But the cabin wasn't secure yet. With a sigh she stood back up and clumsily lowered the barricade, then opened one of the doors to the back room and barricaded the back door, too. Only then did she relax a little.

She flicked on the flashlight on her belt, bathing the room in a dim, white glow, then she began to search. She doubted that a cabin this far up would have a spare fuse for the phonebox, but who could really tell with Kenny. Knowing him, he'd prefer to have five spares in five different places just in case. There could easily be a fuse somewhere in this cabin. Neither the desk nor the small end table in the back of the building had anything of note in them, so she moved back towards the front.

As she stepped through into the little front room, she noticed something. Or, perhaps, a _lack_ of something. The crickets had all gone silent again. She'd noticed it before, just before Rob was murdered, and it had been oddly quiet before Jason had appeared at the window of the shack. A cold chill ran down her spine, and she switched off her flashlight and glanced over at the barrier. It was in place, and three of the windows in the front room were carefully shuttered. If she could just get over there, she could maybe hide away from his notice.

Carefully, slowly, she tiptoed across the room, inching her way into a corner between two shuttered windows. Her hiding spot was hopefully out of sight, with the window on the other side of the door being the only one without shutters. She curled herself up into a ball in the corner, hoping to avoid any notice, and tried hard not to think of reasons why Jason would be back so suddenly. Buggzy must have just lost him, that's all. That's what it _had_ to be, right?

Deborah tried very hard to keep her breathing controlled and quiet, but it was awfully hard to do so. Any second it felt as though her heart would leap out of her chest, and her limbs were still shaky from having pushed herself so much. Through the pounding rush of her own heartbeat, she heard something outside the cabin. A heavy _thud, thud_. Someone was walking around outside, and from the sounds it was someone very large indeed. Curiosity got the better of her, and she stretched up to glance outside through the slats in the shutters.

Jason wasn't as close as she'd thought. He was walking along the path circling the campsite, but any moment he might turn her way. For the first time however, she got a good look at him. He was, as she had correctly discovered earlier, _massive_. Easily over six feet tall, more likely nearing seven, and built like a wall of solid muscle. At least, he should have been solid muscle. As he turned, appearing to search the area, she realized her mistake. The person in front of her should not have been able to move at all.

Parts of him were certainly human-looking, solid and muscular, but his shirt was getting a little tattered around the bottom, and underneath where she should have been able to see skin there seemed to be just an empty hole bathed in shadow. The story said he'd been sunk in the lake for some time, but she hadn't truly believed it before. This creature, with a drape of chain around his neck, and a glistening machete in his hand, was barely a person at all.

The white hockey mask swung towards her window and his body straightened out to follow, and Deborah pulled back. _Had he seen her_? She couldn't tell, but he took a step closer, then another step... It was very hard to control her breathing to a steady, unnoticeable pace now- the world seemed to have shrunk to a pinpoint and the only thing in her sight was Jason slowly walking towards her. Her body tensed all up, preparing to scream or run or _something_ , when a hand clamped down over her mouth and pulled her down, wrestling her into the corner and away from the window.

She very nearly screamed in sheer panic, but the hand held her jaw firmly closed. The person's mouth was close to her ear, and they whispered a soft, harsh _Shhhhh_ , their hot breath tickling her cheek and sending shivers down her spine. She couldn't move her arms either, for whoever was holding her had their other arm around her chest, pinning both of her arms down. They had her pulled so close, she could feel their strong heartbeat pulsing against her back.

The heavy footsteps neared the window, and she closed her eyes. Maybe he wouldn't notice her, or the person who had pulled her down into the shadows. Seconds ticked by, before there was another loud _crack_ from outside, and the shadow at the window disappeared. A shouted challenge (a rather profane one honestly, that made Deborah's eyes widen) and the sound of running feet told her Buggzy had only lost Jason before.

Still, Jason moved slowly, and the arms around her didn't release until the sound of heavy footsteps was gone. Even then, they didn't let go immediately. From next to her ear, the person whispered, " _If I let go, do you promise not to scream_?" Deborah nodded, several vigorous shakes. The hand uncovered her mouth, and the one around her chest receded as well. Immediately she scrambled away from the corner and over close to the table in the center of the room, before turning to look at the person in the corner.

The person was tall, and from the vague shadowy shape she saw and the voice she'd heard in her ear, male. Other than that, she couldn't tell anything, so she flicked on her flashlight, aiming it towards the ground so she didn't blind him. The harsh white glow of the light sent the young man's face into craggy shadows. He didn't look much older than her, really, early 20's at most, but the harsh light made him seem far older. His hair was tawny blond and fell in unkempt curls across his tall forehead. He had a very long face indeed, with hooded eyes and a long straight nose and a cleft in his chin that her flashlight made into a deep gouge. She'd almost say he was overdressed for the occasion, with a heavy denim and sherpa-lined jacket over top of a plaid flannel shirt and a pale blueish-grey henley shirt underneath.

" _Who are you?_ " she asked in a fierce whisper, though she was feeling more scared than violent. " _How did you get here?_ "

The young man sat up and seemed ready to crawl over to her. She shrank back, and he froze. Then, with a big sigh, he settled himself where he was. "My name is Tommy Jarvis. Someone here radioed for help, so I drove over." His voice was soft and faintly nasal, but something about it was so earnest and open. Deborah blinked.

"Radioed... did you hear my message on the CB?" she whispered. He nodded.

"Yeah, I didn't catch all of it, but I understood what you were saying. He's back, isn't he?" The moonlight through the slats of the shutters fell on the stock of a shotgun, hung over the young man's- _Tommy's_ \- shoulder. The corner of his mouth twitched up into a taught, humorless smile. "I brought the gun like you asked, but I don't know how much it will help."

"How do you know that?" Deborah's voice was still a bit shaky from fear.

The smile faded, and his brows furrowed. It could have just been Deborah's imagination, but a haunted look seemed to emerge from his pale eyes. "I've run into Jason before," was all he said but she would have laid money that there was more to the story. Nobody gets a look that broken from something as simple as he made it sound. A few moments passed between them, the silence interrupted by quiet cricket chirps outside. Finally, Tommy spoke again.

"How much damage has he done? Do you know?"

Deborah shrugged. "I dunno, really. The power's out over here in Evergreen, and he messed up the phone fuse box down in Stillwater. That's all I know, I haven't gone anywhere else." Tommy's brow furrowed and he frowned.

"Where's Stillwater? I don't know the camp layout-"

"Ah!" Deborah sat up onto her knees and pulled the folded-up map out of her pocket. "I have a map right here!" She scooted across the floor and settled beside him, laying the map down on the floor so they could both see. Tommy leaned in to look, his side pressed up against hers. "We're here right now, in Evergreen." She pointed to the topmost cabin on the right side of the map. "And Stillwater's down here, by the lake." There were two cabins down there, side by side with the campfire they'd been at right in the center. "And the phone is here, in the big cabin."

Tommy craned his neck from side to side, studying the map, his face getting noticeably close to hers as he did so. "Just the one phone?"

Deborah nodded. "Just one so far, there's another that's supposed to go in at the main lodge soon, but it got delayed. But we have a CB Radio in case of emergencies." With a small sigh she added, "Emergencies like this one, I guess."

Beside her, Tommy turned his head to look at her, and Deborah turned a little to return his gaze. "It's gonna be okay," he said softly, but there was a hesitance in his voice. She could tell he didn't really believe it, and honestly neither did she, but the words were nice to hear. He dropped his gaze back to the map a little too quickly. "How bad is the phone? Can it be repaired?"

A nice, task-oriented question. Deborah closed her eyes for a second, visualizing the damage she'd seen. "There's some disconnected wires, but those shouldn't be difficult to fix. But, he sliced through the door to the box and cut the fuse in half."

"Is there a another fuse around?" asked Tommy, his eyes still on the map.

Deborah opened her eyes and pursed her lips together. She rocked a little from side to side as she thought, occasionally bumping into his side. "There are replacements somewhere, but the only person who knows where they are for sure is Kenny. He's the head counselor," she explained. "There's probably one in the house with the phone, but it's too risky to search there- Jason might be nearby." She breathed out a little huff of frustrated air, making her bangs poof for a second. "I was searching around here, but I haven't seen any signs of a spare fuse nearby. But... it's a long shot, but I'd bet Kenny has a spare hidden away at the main lodge. It's the best stocked building in camp."

Tommy made a thoughtful noise beside her. "The lodge... that's the old Higgins house, right? Over that way?" He pointed towards the western side of the camp. Deborah nodded.

"That's right, I think it used to be a residential building before it got bought and refurbished. At least, that's what I heard." He nodded at her reply.

"I grew up around the lake, I know the area. I'm just not used to the new camp layout." He pointed to the map. "Well, if there's a spare in the lodge, we'd better go look for it." Carefully he folded up the map and stood, offering a hand to help her. "Let's go, um-" He paused for a second, an unanswered question hanging in the air around them.

"Deborah. Deborah Kim," she answered, taking Tommy's hand and letting him pull her up. She couldn't help noticing the lightly callused feeling of his skin as she did so, he certainly wasn't any stranger to physical labor.

Silently, she gestured for Tommy to keep the map, then lead the way the the second room in the building. One of the windows was already open- most likely the one Tommy himself had entered from while she was distracted- and she crawled through it herself, waiting on the other side for her new companion to follow.

The inside of the cabin had been too dark to see anything clearly, but the outdoors were light up by the silver light of a full moon. A moment of regret tinged Deborah's thoughts as wished she'd have picked any other color to wear today instead of white. Under the moonlight it almost seemed to glow. She flicked off her flashlight and motioned for Tommy to follow her. She knew the way well enough, she'd walked it just this afternoon, and if their lights were off they'd be harder to spot.

Walking in silence, they started the trek to the lodge, slipping around behind one of the cabins in the circle and meeting up with a trail on the other side. The trees and rocks seemed to loom around them, and the intense quiet put all her senses on high alert. Every step seemed magnified, every stone displaced by walking or puff of air that moved the leaves above felt like a beacon, designed to alert Jason to their presence. Impressively, Tommy seemed to move as quietly as Deborah herself, despite not knowing the path. He even managed to avoid a few low-hanging branches that could easily have cracked him across the forehead in the dark, were he not paying attention.

Finally the barn came into view, and beyond came a glimpse of the warm, inviting lodge beyond. Deborah picked up the pace, her eyes fixed on the lodge ahead. The lights were still on at the lodge, casting pools of comforting golden light around the area. It was tempting to just run headlong towards the big house, but Deborah forced herself to stick close to the side of the barn. It would be a handy place to escape if she needed it, even if several of the windows were boarded shut.

Halfway along the side of the barn, her foot collided with something heavy. It didn't feel or sound like a rock really, and it rolled away at her touch. A growing feeling of dread washed over her, coiling around her chest and stealing her breath. She turned on her flashlight and lowered her eyes, fearing what she'd see.

There, resting against the side of the barn where it had stopped, lay a human head. Buggzy's sightless face stared back at her, his mouth opened for all eternity in a silent scream.


	5. Chapter 5

Deborah screamed. She couldn't take her eyes off the sight in front of her. The world seemed to spiral around her, narrowing and shrinking and all accompanied by the pounding of her own heartbeat. Terror gripped her, locking her frozen where she stood, unable to move or think. Then, her scream was cut short by a hand clamping over her mouth.

The next several moments all blurred together in a haze of movement. It was as if she were no longer the person in control of her body and instead just observing from the sidelines. The moment she'd screamed, Tommy had broken into a solid run, nearly tackling her in his haste. The hand over her mouth was his, and she felt herself lifted off her feet and dragged along the barn wall to an unbarred window. Tommy clumsily forced open the window one-handed, then pushed her through it, hopping through as soon as she was out of the way. Then, he grabbed her arm and dragged her through the barn to the last stall, dropping into the spot where the shadows were deepest and pulling her down into the hay with him, almost onto his lap. He pulled her close, out of sight, and they huddled there in the dark, waiting.

Since climbing inside the barn, Deborah had kept both hands covering her mouth, though the ability to scream or talk at all seemed to have suddenly left. Her breathing was heavy and panicked, but her throat seemed paralyzed. There were only two words in her mind anyway, pounding through her head with her heartbeat. _My fault, my fault, my fault._ If it wasn't for her, if Buggzy hadn't been trying to help her, trying to save her, then maybe he'd be okay.

Her breath caught in her throat, and it suddenly occurred to her that her hands were wet. Somehow she'd started crying without even noticing it. Hesitantly she reached up and took off her glasses; she didn't have anything to clean them with if they got smudged. She placed them on her lap, her hands shaking so much she nearly dropped her glasses into the hay. It felt like her whole body was shaking, and she sagged against Tommy like a marionette whose strings had all been cut.

Tommy's gaze was fixed on the barn doors and he didn't look down when she rested her head against his chest, but she could feel him stiffen. Even so, he didn't pull away from her. Wordlessly, she clung to the sherpa lapel of his coat, pressing her face against it and sobbing. A few moments later, she felt his hand come to rest against her shoulder. There was an awkwardness to the way he patted her, as if unsure of how to comfort her, but Deborah appreciated the gesture even so.

It couldn't have been more than a minute or two before she felt Tommy move, dropping the hand from her shoulder, and she raised her head. Between the dim light and her own nearsighted, tear-blurred vision, she could barely see anything at all, but Tommy had shifted position just slightly and was craning his neck to see better. Deborah's breath caught in her throat. Was Jason back again? Here to finish them off because she couldn't stop herself from screaming? She'd be no use at all if they had to run right now, and she'd lost her poker somewhere between the barn and, well, what _used_ to be Buggzy. That thought brought a new wave of slick tears to her eyes, and she sniffed heavily through her now very clogged nose.

The sound felt very loud in the silence, but soon another sound followed. Footsteps. Boots probably, from the weight, moving around by the door. She was no expert on it, but Deborah could have sworn they were getting closer too. They didn't really sound like Jason, not the heavy, deliberate footsteps from earlier; more like someone who was in a hurry, but trying not to run. Still, she couldn't be sure, and she tried as hard as she could to breathe as quietly as possible.

Tommy shifted again, and she glanced down to see him unfolding something in his hands- a pocket knife, from the way the blade caught the low light. He felt like a coiled spring beside her, and Deborah leaned away. Really, she didn't know anything about this young man, and if he snapped, who was to say she wouldn't be caught in the crossfire. She trusted him, yes, because she _had_ to, but she still barely knew him.

Moments later there was a flurry of motion, made all the more confusing by Deborah's momentary lack of glasses. It started at the stall door, with a blurry, shadowy person lunging towards them, followed by the sound of metal impacting against wood and a shower of splintery fragments raining through the air. Nearly simultaneously, Tommy beside her stood up, drawing back the hand holding the knife, ready to strike (and nearly hitting Deborah herself in the process.) Both of the movements were so sudden, Deborah couldn't stop herself from yelping in surprise. But before Tommy could come to blows with the newcomer, a familiar voice broke the silence.

"Deborah? What the h- are you doing here? You gave me a heart attack!" The voice was familiar, the deep baritone rumble she'd heard just a few hours earlier.

"Adam?" She squinted up at him, focusing as best she could on his long-haired silhouette.

Adam Palomino sighed, lowering his arms from where he'd had them raised for a second attack. "Yeah, it's me. Put your glasses back on and stop squinting at people, wouldja?" He gestured with the weapon in his hand (which Deborah realized with mild shock when she put her glasses back on, was an _axe_ ) towards Tommy next to her. "And who's this?"

"My name's Tommy Jarvis, I'm here to help-" Tommy began, before Deborah cut in.

"I put out a distress call on the CB radio and he answered. He's going to help us, Adam!"

Adam lowered the axe and looked Tommy up and down with a frown, not bothering to hide it. It was clear he wasn't pleased with what he saw. Tommy wasn't exactly a schlubby nerd, but neither was he exactly _imposing_ either. Although, Deborah noted silently, he wasn't exactly hard on the eyes. "Just him. One dude with a shotgun against the zombie from the black lagoon that just crawled out of the lake. That's your plan, huh?"

"I brought the shotgun because she _asked_ someone to bring a gun over the radio-" Tommy insisted.

"-So you did what a random stranger asked? Have you ever fired that gun before? Did you even remember to bring more bullets?" The smile that crossed Adam's face was tight and joyless.

"I brought what I had, but even that's not going to do s- against Jason-"

From her spot, still sitting in the hay while the two young man raised their voices at each other, Deborah groaned. This was getting them nowhere and giving her a headache. She stood up, positioning herself between them both and pushing them back from each other. "Adam Louis Palomino and Tommy Zachary Jarvis, this is _not_ helping us! Adam, be grateful we've got another hand to help out as well as a shotgun, however useless it may be. Tommy, you're not helping your case and Adam has a right to be skeptical. Stop fighting, okay? You're both pretty." Both guys looked sheepishly at each other and dropped the argument.

There was something bothering Tommy though, from the way he kept looking back at Deborah. "My middle name isn't even _close_ to Zachary-"

"-She does that," Adam explained. "You get used to it. At least it's a guy's name this time; she called Chad 'Tiffany' earlier and nobody let him forget it for the rest of the day."

"It was supposed to be Timothy," mumbled Deborah from in between them. "N-nevermind, why were you skulking around in the barn in the first place, Adam?"

Adam shrugged. "Looking to see if there were any lost car parts in here. Somebody f-ed up all the cars."

A chill ran down Deborah's spine. " _All_ the cars?" She bit her lip. "Dad's gonna have a _fit_ if something happened to my car..."

"Sorry, I didn't have time to note down how badly each car got messed up," said Adam with a dismissive shrug. "The big thing is, a lot of them? There's no way they're moving in a hurry. A lot of cut fuel lines out there. Chad's car's mostly okay though. Somebody just took out the battery and drained all the gas out onto the ground from what I can tell, and I didn't get enough time to really check but I'll wager they f-ed with the engine a bit too."

Tommy's brows pulled together as he frowned. "That's not Jason's style, it's too fiddly. The cut fuel lines maybe, but I doubt he could remove a battery. Not without tearing the engine to pieces in the process."

Deborah sighed. "I bet it was someone playing pranks before this all started. Probably Vanessa putting someone else up to it, if Chad's car's the only one messed up like that."

Adam nodded. "From the ones I looked at, his is the only one that's remotely fixable. Kenny's checking the north cabins for clues and I offered to check here." He stood up a little straighter, as if something had crossed his mind all of a sudden. He cursed softly under his breath as he unclipped a walkie-talkie from the pocket of his leather jacket. "Yo Kenny, I found Deborah." He paused, listening to the crackly squawk on the other side. "Nah man, she's fine, got all her limbs and no injuries I can see."

Tears pricked at Deborah's eyes again at Adam's choice of words. "Um, we found Buggzy too. He's... um..." Deborah pointed in the direction they'd come and shook her head, her gaze lowered to the ground. She couldn't bear to actually say the words. It was enough, however, as Adam nodded gravely in response.

"Scratch Buggzy off the list of people you're looking for too, sorry Ken," Adam said solemnly into the walkie talkie. Deborah couldn't hear what Kenny said on the other side, but it was louder than the previous squawks. "Look, man, I'm gonna do everything I can, okay? Yeah, keep me posted. Out." Adam shook his head hard as he hooked the walkie talkie back onto his coat. "Should'a known it'd be Buggzy." He swore louder this time, punching the wall of the stall with a loud thud. Deborah jumped at the sound, and to her surprise Tommy did as well

"Keep it down, you're gonna let Jason know where we are," he whispered fiercely. Adam glowered at him, distrust clear on his face. From their postures, Deborah worried it would come to blows again, so she intervened.

"Adam, have you been using your walkie all evening? I haven't heard a peep out of mine." His expression softened as he turned to look at her, and he held out a hand to her.

"Lemme look at it," he said. She unclipped the walkie talkie and handed it over to him. Adam turned it over in his hands, clicked the talk button, raised it to his ear with a frown, then shook it. He looked at it again and raised an eyebrow. Then, eyebrow still raised, he looked up at Deborah and rubbed his thumb along the volume control wheel at the side. The wheel clicked and the crackle of static filled the barn, before he lowered the volume back to a reasonable level.

"It helps if you turn it on, Deb." Deborah scowled and took the walkie talkie back, clipping it to the top of her pants. In her rush to gather supplies that might save her life, she'd neglected to even turn her radio on. If they weren't fighting for their lives, she knew she'd never live this down.

"You said you were looking for car parts," she said frostily, over-enunciating every word. Anything to get the focus off her mistake.

"AJ just found the battery stuffed under a couch in the lodge before I ran into you," Adam explained. "But there's no gas in the tank; Kenny said there were cans around to fuel the boats, but I'm guessing our prankster moved those too."

"Cans like those?" Tommy said, pointing out of the stall and down the aisle to the door. Sure enough, tucked behind a set of heavy barrels and only just visible from where they were at was the red metal corner of a gas canister.

"If Vanessa lives through this, I'm going to kill her myself," Adam muttered darkly, stalking over and picking up the heavy container with one hand. "C'mon, safety in numbers. We'll regroup at the car."

Tommy instead ducked into the stall they'd entered from. "You go on ahead, I'll be there in a minute." Deborah frowned as he climbed out of the window, but didn't ask what he was doing. Beside her, Adam made a disgruntled sound deep in his throat, but likewise said nothing to stop Tommy from leaving.

"Let's go, Deb," he said, walking to the doors with the expectation that she'd follow. Follow she did, albeit reluctantly with a glance over her shoulder after Tommy. As she went to leave the barn, however, Adam held out his arm to stop her.

"We've got to move fast across here, it's too well lit," he whispered. The barnyard in front of them was lit up with two very bright lights, casting long shadows from the fences leading to the road. If Jason was in the area, it would be like stepping into a spotlight. "Follow my lead. The car's not far, just out in front of the lodge." With that, Adam charged out into the open, dashing across the pools of light as fast as he could with the heavy gas can.

Deborah poked her head out of the barn doors, glancing from side to side just to be certain that there was nobody watching from the shadows, before darting after Adam. He was hard to miss out there; even if he wasn't running he wasn't exactly stealthy. It wasn't his style from what Deborah had noticed. He was always a bit up close and personal, and with his long hair and decorated leather jacket, it was clear Adam wasn't trying to blend into any crowds. Which was fine, when survival didn't depend on blending in. But just following him made Deborah feel as obvious as a tomato stain on a white shirt.

It took less than a minute to get to the road across from the barn, but each step was an agony of uncertainty. Even running as fast as she could, the fear of being seen made time feel like wading through quicksand. Thankfully the lights didn't reach the main road through camp, and the two paused for a second in the relative gloom of moonlight. "Don't run so fast," Deborah whispered as loudly as she dared. "I can't keep up."

"Sorry," Adam responded. He didn't seem to take it to heart very well, however, for a moment later he took off again, almost as fast as he'd been running before. With a small groan, Deborah took off after him and doing her best to keep up. By the time she caught up to him, they were almost at the car. The hood of the car was up, and a dark clad figure was bent over the engine.

"How's it going, AJ? You got that battery in?" Adam asked, stopping beside the person repairing the car. AJ straightened up, shaking her head to toss her purple-streaked hair out of her eyes.

"Piece of cake, it was easy to get back in. That's probably why it was missing in the first place." Her voice was soft with a wry edge of sarcasm underneath. "It's still not gonna start, though."

"Why not?" Adam said, nearly raising his voice. AJ beckoned him closer, and Adam handed the gas can to Deborah before joining AJ in leaning over the engine. The red metal can weighed far more than Deborah was expecting, and she nearly toppled over on her face. She struggled to slide over to one side where she could see better, still lugging the can, and reached the car in time to see AJ pointing at something.

Adam sighed. "Well, we're gonna need a screwdriver. Do you think Kenny has one stashed in the house?"

"Maybe. Wanna get that gas in the car first? That'll take some time anyway." AJ wiped off her hands on her denim skirt as she straightened up again, glancing to one side as she did so. "Hey, Deb."

"Hi, AJ," Deborah said automatically. She and AJ hadn't exactly been close during the past week, though Deborah had tried to be friendly. AJ just wasn't the most open person, she figured, but it had worried her constantly that conversations between them felt stilted and awkward. "I can look in the house if you want? There's something else I wanted to look for, too."

"What are you looking for?" All three jumped and turned around at the voice behind them, Deborah nearly falling over again under the weight of the gas canister. A wave of relief washed over her as she realized it was just Tommy, though with the shadows from the nearby trees it was hard to tell at first.

"A screwdriver-" Deborah began, but Adam started speaking at the same time, drowning her out.

"-Got some loose parts in the engine. AJ and I agreed we need a screwdriver to fix it."

Tommy fished around in his pocket, coming up with the same pocket knife he'd nearly attacked Adam with. He opened the blade out, then flipped out an attachment from inside the case, before folding the blade back in. "Like this?" he asked, handing the knife-turned-screwdriver over to Adam. After a momentary hesitation, Adam took the screwdriver and Tommy leaned over the engine to check for himself. "Over here, right?" he asked, pointing out the same spot AJ had.

"Yeah," Adam said with a nod. "You know your way around an engine, huh?"

"You could say that," said Tommy, straightening up. "I'll put the gas in while you fix the engine." With only a glance at Deborah, he reached out to take the heavy can from her, giving her the wooden baseball bat he'd been carrying to hold in its place. Gladly she accepted the bat, her shoulders sagging with relief now that they no longer had to strain to keep the can off the ground. Despite the weight, Tommy didn't seem to struggle at all as he walked quickly around the back of the car and set about filling the tank.

As the engine repair was simply tightening a few loose screws, Adam was done before Tommy had finished filling the gas. He pulled the hood of the car closed, then leaned to one side to check on Tommy's progress. "Y'know, I thought you looked familiar. You work at the gas station, right? Weren't you working the pumps the other day?" Tommy looked up at him, his expression nearly completely blank, save for one slightly raised eyebrow. His lack of response seemed to indicate that Adam was completely right.

Before Adam could continue pursuing that thought, the front door to the lodge opened. Deborah turned at the sound of running feet and found herself nearly tackled in a hug from Jenny. "Debbie! You're safe! I was worried when nobody knew where you'd gone!" For once, Deborah didn't even mind the sudden hug. Out of all the counselors during the prep week, Jenny had been the closest to being an actual friend, always giving out advice and smiles and big bear hugs.

"I'm sorry, I would have radioed but my walkie-talkie wasn't working," Deborah said, leaving out how it wasn't working because she hadn't turned it on by accident.

"It's okay, you're safe now, that's what matters. Now we've just got to find Eric, Tiff and Vanessa-" Jenny stopped speaking abruptly as Tommy finished putting the gas in on the other side of the car and straightened up. "-Who is that?" A worried, distrustful note crept into her voice. She let go of Deborah, stepping in front of her.

"Don't look at me, I don't know," AJ replied, glaring across the car at Tommy.

"My name's Tommy Jarvis. I answered a distress call, I'm here to help." Already he'd had to introduce himself several times and to Deborah's ears it sounded as if he was getting a touch irritated. He looked over at Adam as he set down the gas cannister on the ground. "The tank's filled, you should be ready to go."

Adam unclipped his walkie-talkie from his jacket. "Any luck with getting the keys, Jen?" he asked, shooting her a glance. Jenny shook her head.

"Chad can't remember where he had them, and I can't get him out from under the bed."

"Typical," AJ muttered. Adam groaned from the other side of the car and raised the walkie-talkie to his ear.

"Hey Ken, we got the car back together. Have you found the keys yet? Chad still can't remember where they are." Deborah unclipped her own walkie talkie so she could hear what was said.

From the other end of the connection she could hear Kenny sigh. "I haven't found any signs of them yet, and I kept tabs on him all day. There's no way he lost them somewhere outside of the main camp."

"Unless Vanessa moved them..." Adam muttered.

"We don't know she did anything, so we have to err on the side of Chad being a scatterbrained idiot," Kenny said curtly. "I haven't searched the second cabin up here, so it's possible he dropped them inside someplace."

"I'm gonna go back in the lodge to check again, maybe they got kicked under a couch or something," Jenny said with a shrug.

Seeing a break in the conversation, Deborah jumped in. "Kenny, is there a spare fuse for the phone box up at the lodge?" The words seemed to tumble out of her mouth in a clump. Kenny was a really good guy, honestly, but with his intense stares and scraggly black beard, sometimes he made Deborah nervous. But now that she had to talk to him, all those nerves made it hard to speak normally.

"Deb! Uh-" Kenny said, sounding surprised to hear from her. "Yeah, there should be one over there. Upstairs in the storage room, I think? Not sure where though, I'm a little busy." There was a pause on the line, before he spoke again. "Did something happen to the fuse that's in there now?"

"It's kind of, um, broken," said Deborah, chewing on her lip. "Jason got there first, but it's repairable. I just need the spare."

"Roger that," Kenny said. Deborah was just about to put her walkie-talkie back on her belt, when the line crackled again. "Alright, did someone build a fire in the fireplace up here and then leave it burning? Because that's definitely an infraction, you could burn the house dow-"

Kenny's voice cut off with abruptly, and the faint sounds of someone gasping for air came through the speakers of Deborah's walkie talkie. Then, nothing. Cold, blank silence. A sense of dread spread through Deborah, clamping around her heart like a frozen fist as she turned to look at the others with her. She saw the same uneasy expression mirrored on their faces as they lowered the walkie-talkies they'd been listening in on. Even Tommy, who seemed to have picked up a walkie-talkie of his own somewhere after he'd left them in the barn, had a deep frown on his face.

Then the screaming started.

It was a good distance away, up north of the main lodge, but the night was quiet and it carried surprisingly well. And Deborah knew she'd never be able to forget it. This was a scream of the most agonizing pain, rough and raw. Even as far away as it was, the intensity was palpable and every muscle in Deborah's body began to shake in sheer terror. There was not a doubt in her mind about who was making that noise.

As abruptly as it started, the screaming ended, leaving silence once again in its wake. AJ made a strangled sound and clamped her hands to her mouth. Roughly, Adam pulled her close, letting her bury her face against his shoulder. None of them were capable of speech at that moment. It was as if time itself had stopped, leaving them stranded in an empty, colorless bubble.

Like all things do, however, the feeling of frozen time was not to last. The first thing that broke the silence was the front door of the lodge bursting open and Jenny sprinting the short distance to the car. There were clearly tears in her eyes as she approached, but her mouth was a grim, determined line. In her outstretched hand glimmered the silvery shape of a set of car keys, and she held them out to Adam.

"They were under the couch," she said shortly, her voice choked with emotion. "I told Chad to get his butt out from under the bed but-" Before she could finish, the lights around them blinked out, plunging them into darkness. Moments later, the door again opened and Chad shot out, racing for the car with long, clumsy strides. He made a desperate dive for the keys Jenny was holding as he approached, but ended up grasping her hand as well when she didn't immediately let go of them.

"I've got to get out of here," he sobbed, his normally good-looking face blotchy and soaked with tears. Deborah had harbored a crush on him from the moment she arrived at the camp earlier in the week, but seeing him like this shattered the shiny illusion she'd crafted for herself. Somewhere deep down she'd figured there was more to the lazy, self-indulgent rich boy with the charming smile than she'd seen, and that with a little push he'd turn into someone incredible. Now that there was actual stress in his life, Chad went to pieces like wet paper, hiding under a bed and sobbing until there was a chance to get to safety.

She'd certainly misjudged him.

Chad was still tugging on Jenny's hand, angling for the keys while everyone stared at him. Reluctantly, Jenny shrugged, a small apologetic smile on her face as she let go. "Well, it is his car," she admitted. Chad lunged for the drivers side door and flung himself into the seat. He fumbled to put the key into the ignition, but Jenny was faster and dove forward to grab his hand. "You're taking someone out with you, Chad." There was no bargaining with that statement, even though she made it while practically flung across his chest, only keeping her balance by holding onto the open door.

Nobody made a move for the other door, despite how much everyone wanted to be anywhere but here, but it took a moment for Deborah to fully realize why. Chad's little sports car was a lovely, shiny yellow and almost certainly new... and it had only two seats. With five people currently standing near the car, it was inevitable that the majority of them would have to stay behind.

Tommy broke the silence. "I'm not leaving until Jason's back where he belongs," he said with a grim determination. His words stirred a flutter of courage in Deborah's heart. It would be so easy to just dive for the seat next to Chad and earlier in the week she would have gladly done so, but now she had a much more important job to do.

"I've gotta stay too," she insisted, tightening her grip on the bat in her hands. "Somebody's got to get that phone fixed."

"Jenny-" AJ started, but Jenny shook her head.

"I'm not leaving either. I should really stay here and run things now that Kenny... can't." She was doing her darndest to hold herself together, but there was a hitch in her throat when she mentioned Kenny.

At last Adam spoke, his voice so low Deborah could barely hear it. "Get in the car, AJ." AJ stared up at him, looking for a moment like she was going to protest, but Adam grabbed her by the shoulders and gently (but firmly) steered her over to the passenger's side door. "Get in the car," he repeated. Still staring up at him, AJ fumbled for the door and climbed into the seat, but didn't close the door right away.

"Adam-" He shook his head at her, stepping over to the car to lean his arm on the roof over the door and rest his forehead against his arm.

"I'm sorry, AJ," he said softly. "I should have just swallowed my pride and told you how I felt sooner. Just, get out of here and live your life, okay?" The brightness of his eyes didn't escape AJ's notice, nor the way he'd suddenly started blinking a lot more. She reached a hand out of the car and grabbed onto the lapel of his leather jacket, tugging on it a little and pulling him down closer to her. Then, she rose out of her seat a little and pressed a warm, soft kiss onto his lips.

"I like you too, Adam," she whispered as she sank back into her seat, tears already welling in her eyes. With a conspicuous sniff, Adam straightened up to press the heels of his hands against his eyes. He sighed heavily, staring up at the starry sky over his head before tugging off his jacket and bending down to toss it onto AJ's lap, then leaning in to kiss her in return.

It seemed almost physically painful for Adam to pull away, but he closed the car door and crossed around the front to the drivers side, his face a twisted confusion of sadness and anger. "You get her out of here, you hear me, Chad? If anything happens to AJ, I swear I'll make you regret everything you ever did." He turned to face the others once he got a nervous nod from Chad. "Jenny, Deborah... uh, Tommy? Get in the house, do whatever you've got to. I'm gonna make sure they get out."

It was certainly clear to Tommy what Adam was planning, and his brows furrowed deeper still. "Jason's gonna hear the car when they start it..."

"Yeah, I figured." Adam matched Tommy glare for glare, and Tommy was the first to break eye contact. He stepped over to Jenny and Deborah, placing a hand on each of their backs and steering them towards the house.

"Good luck. Wait 'til we get to the house before you start the car," he cautioned. Jenny shot one last lingering glance at the car before jogging back to the house. Deborah, however, stayed close to Tommy, reluctant to leave her friends behind but at the same time wanting to stick close to her new companion. With Tommy's hand on her elbow, she let him guide her up onto the porch and into the big main room of the lodge. The exterior doors were not very sturdy honestly, and the flimsy locking mechanism would certainly not keep Jason out so Deborah didn't even bother trying to lock them.

The sound of the car trying to start outside caught Deborah's ear. Slowly, she walked over to the window nearest the door, trying to look out and watch the car get away. "You should go upstairs and find that fuse," Tommy said from behind her, a note of urgency in his voice, but she didn't turn to look at him. "I'll keep an eye out down here; I don't know where to start looking." He reached into the pocket of his jacket and pulled out a red pocket knife, different from the one he'd used to fix the car, before pressing it into her hand. "If something happens and Jason tries to grab you, _stab him_. It might buy you a few seconds to get away."

She looked up at his face in horror. "But I could never-"

"You might have to," Tommy insisted. "You just have to do it and not think about it." Deborah pressed her lips together in a frown and walked over to the twisting staircase up to the second floor. She glanced at the windows in front as she stepped on the stairs and froze. Somehow, in the seconds that she'd looked away, Jason had shown up by the car. It had only just started driving away but Jason's attention wasn't on the car at the moment- it was on Adam who was wielding the firewood axe he'd had earlier in the barn.

As she watched, Adam swung the axe at Jason, catching him in the side. A chunk of cloth and something else that Deborah realized with a swell of nausea must be flesh fell off onto the ground, but the axe stuck fast in Jason's side. With a twist of his torso, Jason yanked the axe handle out of Adam's grasp, then wrenched the whole thing from his side and flung it away. Adam staggered back a few steps but Jason lunged forward, grabbing a hold of him and hoisting him into the air over his head.

All of a sudden, Deborah realized she didn't actually want to see anymore, and ran upstairs as fast as she could. No matter how fast she moved, however, she could still hear Adam's faint swearing from outside... and then the moment when his voice went quiet with a sickening crunch and a heavy thud. Fighting the urge to cry again, she fled down the upstairs hall to the storage room in the back and flung the door open.

Inside the storage closet was an array of shelves that sent a tendril of dread curling around her heart. There were so many boxes and containers here, she'd never be able to look through all of them fast enough. After all, it was only a matter of time before Jason decided to come check out the house. The flashlight on her belt made the shelves cast huge, daunting shadows as she began to look. Boxes of cleaning supplies, stationery and office supplies, and enough rolls of toilet paper to cover the front porch in white greeted her. She pushed a box labelled "staples" to one side, reaching for a box behind it, but her eye fell on the label for a moment and a jolt passed through her.

_Of course_ Kenny labelled everything. Why wouldn't he? Everything had to be easily findable in case they couldn't ask him for help! Quickly Deborah scanned the labels, hunting for any box labeled "phone."

Nothing.

Next she scanned the area where the "F's" should be for "fuse" but again came up with nothing. Deborah frowned. There were no other storage closets in the upstairs, so this had to be the right spot. _Phone, fuse... Telephone_! She hadn't even looked for the word "telephone" and of course there was a box right in plain sight labelled "Telephone Fuses."

Deborah could have kicked herself, but she settled instead with grabbing one of the precious fuses from the box and running back down the hall to the main room. She stopped at the top of the stairs to hold the fuse over her head, waving it like a flag in an attempt to catch Tommy's attention, but Tommy wasn't paying attention.

He was standing at the door of the lodge, the shotgun no longer slung across his back, but pointed out at something in front of him. "C'mon, I'm waiting! I'm waiting for ya!" he shouted, and Deborah started to call out in response, but Tommy hissed a sharp warning to be quiet. His words clearly hadn't been meant for her. Moments ticked by, with both of them standing as still as if they'd been turned to stone. She could just barely hear Tommy whispering, "Closer, closer-" under his breath.

Heavy footsteps sounded on the porch steps, and Tommy fired, the sound of the gunshot echoing along the porch and shattering the silence of the night. The heavy thud of a body slamming into the ground followed.

Tommy whirled, stepping back inside and slamming the door shut in one fluid motion, pausing for a second to lock it behind him. He swung the shotgun back over his shoulder and bounded for the steps, taking them two at a time with his long strides. Tommy reached for her arm as he approached, steering her back down the hall she'd just left, and she caught a glimpse of his eyes for just a moment as he passed. They'd been pale greyish blue before, like a cloudy day that promised rain, but now there was something intense and frightening deep within them.

Deborah was stunned by his behavior long enough to let him drag her down the hall and into one of the back bedrooms before she spoke. "Tommy, I have the fuse! We can leave!" The distant, focused look on his face faded with a blink, and he looked at her in mild confusion.

"Oh, yeah," he said slowly, then looked at the closed door in front of them. From somewhere down below them, came heavy, deliberate footsteps. They were trapped up in a second-story room with a killer below them and only a single staircase between them. Tommy gestured for her to hand him the bat. Reluctantly, Deborah gave it to him, glancing up to look at him with a concerned frown. "I knew the shotgun wouldn't stop him, but I've got a plan." He walked over to the large double bed and pulled up the dust ruffle.

"I am _not_ going under the bed," Deborah hissed. "It's- there could be- I just can't-" She clutched the fuse to her chest as she spoke, feeling a rising swell of panic. But Tommy didn't move, just stared at her expectantly, and there was really nowhere else to go. With an anxious whimper, she dropped to the floor and proceeded to slide under the bed.

"Just trust me, I've got a plan," Tommy whispered as she disappeared under the bed. Honestly, at that point Deborah wasn't entirely sure how much she actually trusted him. The look in his eyes after he shot Jason was stuck in her mind and something about that gaze was deeply unsettling. From across the room she heard the door to the large wardrobe open and shut, and she assumed Tommy must have hidden inside it. Whatever his plan was, she couldn't figure it out at all.

From down the hall, the spiraling staircase creaked and groaned. There was no doubt at all now that Jason was on his way to their location. Deborah closed her eyes and tried not to move or breathe as much as possible. Whatever Tommy's plan was, she hoped it worked. It was their only way out of this.


	6. Chapter 6

The underside of the bed was surprisingly less dusty than she'd expected. When Tommy had told her to crawl underneath, Deborah's mind had filled with images of dust bunnies as big as small rodents and massive spiderwebs laced across the narrow space. In reality, there were no spiderwebs at all, and only a little dust lurking in the corners. Kenny had done a surprisingly good job of cleaning, she thought.

_Kenny_.

A twinge of guilt pierced her heart as she thought about him. Was it her fault he'd gotten caught? He'd been talking to her after all, and probably paying more attention to her questions than to his surroundings. Deborah tightened her grip around the fuse in her hand. They just _had_ to get out of here and call for help; after all, Kenny died making sure they knew where the fuses were at. If they didn't get that call off, then his death would just be too cruel and pointless.

That was assuming they could get rid of Jason Voorhees, of course.

The heavy footsteps were in the hallway now, but Deborah couldn't guess where exactly he was. There was, however, a distinctly unpleasant smell creeping through the upstairs of the lodge. It reeked of mud and mold and decomposing plant matter, but most of all was the sickening scent of decaying flesh. She swallowed hard, trying to keep down the bile that threatened to creep into her mouth just from the stench.

The footsteps grew closer and she could hear the door across the hall get flung open and slam into a dresser behind the door with a loud thud. Jason hadn't found them, and she nearly let herself relax. A tiny, horrible part of herself couldn't shake the knowledge that it was just a matter of time before Jason figured out where they were. She almost wished he'd hurry up in that case; hiding under the bed was cramped and uncomfortable, and even without it being as dusty as she'd feared, there was still enough left that her nose was beginning to tickle.

Moments later, the door to the bedroom they were in slammed open, crashing into a nearby desk and sending a collection of bottles crashing to the floor from the cubbies they were in. The resulting clatter was so startling that Deborah instinctively tensed up, taking in a deep breath of putrid, dusty air as she did so. Thankfully, even though startled she made very little noise, but the tickling, burning sensation in her nose had only gotten worse.

From her narrow viewpoint under the bed, Deborah could barely see anything, save for a pair of ratty-looking boots, moving around with each heavy footstep as Jason searched for his prey. He didn't speak or make much of any noise besides the ponderous footsteps, but to Deborah it appeared that he'd lost track of them. She watched his boots wander around the end of the bed towards the window, and then back towards the door. Just as he was stepping back into the hall, the tickle in Deborah's nose got decidedly worse. Knowing exactly what it meant, she held her breath, hoping to stop the sneeze from erupting out and drawing attention to her hiding place.

It worked. Almost. There was no massive sneeze but instead, a muffled, strangled sound that made her nose and throat burn from the effort. But at the same time, it certainly wasn't silent. The boots that had just made their way to the hall turned around and stalked back over to the bed she was hiding under, stopping right in front of her face. Deborah's grip on the fuse tightened as she realized just how much danger she was in, with no easy way to escape her hiding place.

The bedframe limited her view to a very narrow range, but from the wardrobe across the room Tommy could see everything clearly. Jason had stopped right beside her, that much they both could see, but only Tommy could see him raising his machete with intent to stab through the bed. A surge of adrenaline kicked in, and with seconds to spare Tommy burst out from his hiding place, the bat clutched in both hands. His first blow was directed at the back of Jason's knees with enough force to cause them to buckle and throw his huge adversary off balance. Then, he swung for the back of Jason's head, taking advantage of his lack of balance to force Jason to topple forwards. With one final swing, Tommy swung the bat down across Jason's shoulders, driving him further off-balance and shattering the bat.

Deborah had noticed Tommy's feet joining Jason's beside the bed, and she'd already started crawling backwards out from under the bed. It was slow going, however, and only her feet were showing out from under the bed by the time Tommy had finished his last strike. Moments later, she felt hands grip her feet and tug as hard as they could, yanking her the rest of the way out and pulling her sweater up nearly to her armpits. As soon as she was free, Tommy was pulling her up to a standing position, then grabbing her wrist and dragging her out of the room and down the hall. She staggered after him, attempting to straighten out her sweater with her free hand while also holding on to the fuse in her other.

They ran down the stairs as fast as they could, the fear of falling from carelessness easily overwhelmed by the sound of footsteps in the hall above. Nearly directly in front of the last step was a door to one of the back rooms, and Tommy flung the door open, waiting for Deborah to run through before slamming it shut and fastening the lock. Before Tommy said anything, before he even had a real chance to examine the room they were in, Deborah was opening the back window. It was a decent drop on the other side, but not all that bad really, and Deborah knew it was their only escape. Carefully she climbed out through the window and dropped out of view, but the soft thump and lack of any cries of pain let Tommy know she'd gotten out safely.

The door to the room shook suddenly, accompanied by the sound of splintering wood as Jason struck it with his machete. Were he alone, Tommy might have stayed where he was, intending to confront his nemesis again, but the insistent tugging of obligation drew his attention away. There was something he needed to do first. Again, Jason struck the door and large cracks were already forming in the wood. Tommy ran for the other side of the room, vaulting over the couch in the center on his way and hopping through the open window. He landed with a jolt on his feet in the dirt outside, the impact rattling his teeth painfully. This time, however, it was Deborah who grabbed his wrist and tugged him along before he was ready.

"There's cabins to the north," she whispered as she pulled him away from the house, towards the main road. "We can hide there." Behind them, the window they'd just left erupted outwards in a shower of broken glass. They were far enough away that none of the shards could reach them, but instinctively, Deborah flinched. She let go of Tommy's hand to attempt to cover her head and quickened her steps to put as much distance between the house and herself. Part of a log fence loomed ahead of her, and she ran along it until she came to the end, headed for the long cabin just to the west.

Several of the windows on the cabin were shuttered and Deborah was in far too much of a rush to even attempt to open them. But further along, one of the windows had been left alone, so she ran towards it. As she approached, Deborah glanced back over her shoulder to check on Tommy and her steps abruptly faltered at what she saw.

When Jason had broken the window behind them, Deborah had let go of Tommy's hand without meaning to and the two of them had gotten separated. Not by much and certainly not on purpose, but Deborah knew the way to the northern cabins and Tommy didn't, on top of being greatly distracted. The ground was rocky and uneven and dotted by many small trees, which would be bad enough to run across without the added distraction of glancing around for signs of pursuit. As a result, Tommy lagged behind and was several feet behind Deborah when she stopped to check on him. That, however, was not what had made her pause.

It was the sight of Jason Voorhees melting out of the shadows behind Tommy like a wraith, before reaching out to grab him around the throat. One great hand gripped Tommy's neck like a vice while the other was placed on the side of his head, holding him steady and attempting to snap his head clean off his shoulders. Pain and exertion clouded Tommy's eyes for a moment as he struggled to get free, placing his own hand on the side of his head opposite Jason's and pushing back as hard as he could. His own heartbeat pounded in his ears, drowning out all but the faintest hint of Deborah calling out for him as he fumbled in the pocket of his jeans for the knife he'd placed there. Still struggling against Jason's attempts to kill him, Tommy flicked the knife open and stabbed back over his shoulder with all his might.

The hands released him abruptly as Jason stumbled back, the knife buried in his shoulder. It was less out of pain than surprise, but it was enough for Tommy to get free. As soon as he could, Tommy bolted for the house, gasping for air as he ran. The window behind Deborah wasn't open and Jason wouldn't be stunned long, so Tommy was forced to act on instinct.

It was a move he couldn't have done again if he'd tried. He dodged towards the house as he ran, flinging out one arm and catching Deborah around the shoulders. With an almost balletic grace, he spun on his toe, flung the other arm around her as well and pulled her arms in close, then he bent his knees, gathered all his remaining strength, and leapt backwards through the closed window.

Fragments of glass filled the air around them as they fell, for a moment sparkling in the moonlight like crystal. Then, came the hard jolt as Tommy's back and head made contact with the floor, followed immediately by the sudden weight of Deborah's body on top of his chest. The pressure drove what little air was still in his lungs out of his mouth in a pained gasp, but for a few seconds all either one of them could feel was the faint leaden sensation of relief.

The moment of respite was not to last, however. Jason was almost certainly free from his momentary shock, and would no doubt be along any moment to find them in the cabin. Deborah found herself tossed onto the floor as Tommy rolled over, and she glanced back at him, only to discover Tommy waving her towards one of the several bunks around the room, before rolling underneath one of his own. Fighting back an exhausted whimper, Deborah slid under the bed, still clutching the phone fuse tightly to her chest.

Her bed was across from Tommy's, though a bit further down the room, though she could barely see him until her eyes began to adjust to the darkness. He lay nearly completely still and she assumed he was likely trying to make as little noise as possible, but from the way his chest was heaving she knew he was struggling. She herself was winded a bit from the sprint to the cabin, but she couldn't imagine what Tommy must be feeling after nearly having his neck snapped.

Deborah's palms were getting sweaty from the continuing stress, and it was getting harder to keep a tight hold on the fuse. She didn't dare put it down though, after the number of times she'd misplaced things over the past week including that blasted water bottle she'd managed to lose sometime since meeting with Eric that afternoon. Holding the fuse was the only way to be sure it was safe, but her arms were growing so tired now, and having to hold perfectly still was growing unbearable. She waited with dread for the sound of heavy footsteps coming her way.

But they didn't come.

Minutes passed, and slowly the tension ebbed out of her body, bringing with it a nagging tiredness and a faint ache as well. There was no way of telling what time it was now, not curled up in the dark under a bed, but it was definitely getting close to midnight, if it wasn't already past. Staying up this late wasn't exactly something she was used to, and the absence of adrenaline left her weary, but she didn't dare move until Tommy did.

As if on cue, Tommy slowly slid out from under his bed, and Deborah followed suit, though slightly less silently than Tommy had. Outside, the loud chirps of crickets seemed to whisper that they were safe for the moment, and Deborah flicked her flashlight on, bathing the room in bright white light. When she glanced at Tommy's face, she gasped and took a few steps closer to him, raising a hand towards it. Immediately Tommy flinched away, and she drew her hand back, but continued to stare at him.

His cheeks and forehead were smeared with blood, oozing from tiny cuts criss-crossing his face. She'd seen blood before obviously, she'd even seen a decapitated head today. Yet somehow, this time it felt like the world was falling away from her. "Tommy, you're _bleeding_!" she said softly. A small part of her couldn't help cringing at how obvious her statement was, but at the same time she felt like it needed to be said somehow. Tommy frowned, looking a bit uncomfortable at the attention.

"It's nothing, it doesn't hurt. We need to keep moving-"

"You're going _nowhere_ like that," Deborah insisted, placing a hand on his chest and pushing until he stepped back. The backs of Tommy's knees hit the edge of the bed and they buckled, forcing him to sit on the bunk with a thump and a squeak of springs. "It's disgusting and unsanitary out there, and I'm not having you get an infection from running around with open cuts! Stay put!" Deborah marched down the length of the room to the small bathroom, heading straight for the first-aid kit that was stashed inside. Her hands shook as she picked it up, and she carried it back to the bunk where Tommy still sat with faltering steps.

That sudden moment of courage she'd felt was lost by the time she sat down and shifted her flashlight so she could see to rummage through the box, not able to look up at Tommy just yet. It had been so unlike her to take charge like that and she hadn't meant to be so forceful, but when he'd tried to insist they leave, something had just come over her. Now, though, she felt a sudden reluctance to actually follow through with cleaning his wounds. Deborah didn't consider herself _squeamish_ really, in fact she'd done quite well with first aid training over the past week, but something about the situation, or perhaps the _subject_ , sent butterflies into her stomach.

"This will probably sting a little," she said, spraying a some antiseptic spray onto a pad of gauze, then gently placing it on a set of cuts on the edge of Tommy's jaw. As soon as the gauze touched his face, Tommy flinched and cried out, causing Deborah to retract her hand as well as if she'd been struck. She tried again, and once more he flinched away with a strangled sound. "It wouldn't hurt so much if you'd just sit still!" Realizing that nothing was going to keep Deborah from cleaning his cuts, Tommy gritted his teeth and squeezed his eyes shut, but held still for her. Only the occasional gasp for breath through clenched teeth or choked noise let her know that it still hurt.

Disinfecting his wounds didn't take much work or time, once Tommy finally let her work, but it did require her to get fairly close to his face. And suddenly, she pinpointed the source of the butterflies. In the barn earlier she'd unintentionally noticed that he seemed to have a good physique, and his voice before that had been the factor that made her trust him so much, but she hadn't paid much attention to his face. Now she had no choice not to, and it wasn't escaping her notice that even with his face contorted with pain, Tommy Jarvis was far more good looking than she'd initially thought. Hello butterflies, goodbye confidence.

Finally, Deborah lowered her hand. "Okay, that's it. Just- don't go rubbing your face in dirt or anything, okay? I don't think I can put bandages on your cuts." Tommy opened his eyes, but Deborah dropped her gaze to her lap as she set about putting the now bloody gauze in a small plastic bag, so that she could better dispose of it. Her attention was so focused on what she was doing, as well as not paying attention to Tommy, that the feeling of a gauze pad touching her cheek and the immediate burning pain that came after it nearly caused her to fall off the bed.

She cried out in pain, before snapping her head to look Tommy square in the eyes. "That _hurt_!" she snapped, for a moment losing control and nearly shouting.

"It wouldn't if you sat still," Tommy replied. The tiniest hint of an smile played at the corner of his mouth, and his pale eyes glittered impishly. Deborah sighed. After spending that time cleaning his cuts, she couldn't exactly tell him to leave hers alone either. Resigning herself to her fate, she closed her eyes, and moments later she felt Tommy carefully remove the glasses from her nose.

She had barely even noticed she had any cuts until he'd drawn attention to it, and now she could feel them throbbing faintly. Of course, each time the gauze touched her face, the faint throbbing turned into burning agony for a few seconds, but somehow she'd gotten off lighter than Tommy had. The pain made her eyes water, and as soon as he finished she pulled the cuffs of her sweater down over her palms and dabbed at her eyes. Salt water would hurt just as bad as the disinfectant, and she was tired of crying today anyway.

Carefully she put her glasses back on, then gathered up the rest of the gauze and the can of antiseptic spray and put the first aid kit back together. Still gazing at her hands, she stood up to put it all back in the bathroom, but paused for a moment. With her head still bowed, Deborah swallowed hard, then took a deep breath, before glancing up at Tommy through her eyelashes. "Thank you," she said quietly.

"Yeah." Tommy's reply was equally soft, and she barely heard it before she darted back to the bathroom and put the box back on its shelf. When she got back, Tommy was sitting with his elbows on his knees and his fingers steepled before him, his head bowed and clearly lost in thought. He didn't look up when she stopped beside him, only inhaled deeply before speaking. "How do we get to the house with the phone?"

Deborah thought for a moment. "Well, the fastest way is to take the main road down to Stillwater, but it's also probably the most dangerous right now. That road is covered the whole way with streetlights, we'd be spotted in no time." Tommy fished in his pocket and got out the map again, spreading it out across the bed. "But, we could take the trails down to Blair's Cove instead. It's a bit of a hike, but we can cut back to the main road at the bridge, and Jason might not see us easily if we're in the woods."

Tommy stared at the map a bit more then nodded. "Okay, let's do that," he said slowly. "How well do you know the trails around here in the dark?"

"Uh, not very well, honestly," Deborah said with a grimace. "I mostly stayed in my cabin at night, it's..." she gave a half-hearted chuckle, "... it's not safe to be outside at night." Tommy only raised his eyebrows a touch, before folding up the map and placing it into the pocket of his coat.

With a heavy sigh, he stood. "We're going to need weapons first, I'll go look in the front room. Then we've got to get out of here as fast as we can, it's too risky staying in one place." He walked down the length of the room to the door and Deborah instinctively followed, not wanting to be left behind. However, as they approached the door, she noticed an awful, burnt scent that she hadn't noticed at the other end of the room. Tommy opened the door a crack, before recoiling from whatever he saw on the other side.

"What-?" Deborah began but Tommy shook his head.

"You don't want to see." He didn't say any more before he took a deep breath and stepped into the room, closing the door behind him. A momentary flicker of a dwindling fire was all that Deborah was able to see, but after what she'd heard at the lodge, she could guess what was in that room. The previous butterflies in her stomach had now turned into a rock hard lump of anxiety, and she quickly walked back down the room away from the door and the grisly sight beyond.

While she waited for Tommy to return, Deborah rummaged through a few more drawers that lined the walls of the room. Most were empty as she'd come to expect, but someone had squirreled away a few strings of firecrackers in one drawer. Deborah frowned, but picked up the strings nonetheless. Someone had certainly smuggled these in, and from out of state too. She knew for a fact they were illegal, but at the same time she figured if she found a use for them before any police arrived, there'd be nothing to get in trouble for. She stuffed the fireworks in her pocket just as Tommy entered the room again.

"Here." He handed her one of the red flare guns that Kenny had left around the camp. "If we get separated, fire this off. I'll be able to find you." He shrugged. "And it might be useful to scare Jason off in a pinch, or at least blind him." Deborah nodded, a touch unsure about the second suggested use, but after a glance at the combination wrench Tommy was now carrying, she figured they'd be okay even if she failed. Just as she was about to hop out the window, something poked her in the arm.

When she glanced back, she saw Tommy holding out the fuse towards her. "Missing something?"

"Oh." Sheepishly, Deborah took the fuse, clutching it to her chest with her left hand again. "Dreamy Debbie strikes again," she mumbled, crawling out of the window somewhat more awkwardly than before. Tommy followed, but as soon as they were out of the window he paused, glancing the way they'd come before sprinting over to pick up something from the ground. He walked back slower, wiping off the blade of the newly retrieved pocket knife on the leg of his jeans, before closing it up and returning it to his pocket. A small gesture of his hand as he reached her seemed to indicate that he wanted Deborah to lead the way, and with a nod she turned towards the westernmost part of the camp.

There was a small creek between them and the trails to the west that fed down into a larger river that led to the lake at the south end of camp. The soft murmur of water covered their footsteps nicely as they approached, but it lead to a small problem when they reached it. Despite it's narrow size, the creek was too broad to be safely jumped, but there were no good rocks to cross over either. To the north, the main road crossed it with a rickety wooden bridge that nearly shook itself to pieces with each car that crossed it, and the south had a much sturdier footbridge that was right beside the main house and completely out in the open. They'd have to wade across if they wanted to stay in the shadows and away from roads.

Deborah gritted her teeth and stepped in, trying to stick to the larger rocks nearer the surface to keep some part of her feet dry. She didn't want to ruin her shoes by getting them wet, but the other alternative was the possibility of injuring her bare foot by accident, which would be a far greater inconvenience. The water was chilly, but thankfully not deep or fast and while it would have felt lovely seven hours before when the temperature was swelteringly hot, now the chilly feel of the water clung to her skin even when she reached the other side. Silently she beckoned Tommy further into the woods, leading the way to the network of trails ahead.

A gloom settled over the world as they reached the cover of the woods, the dimness of the forest compounded by heavy clouds that were beginning to cover the moon above. Deborah was more focused on not tripping over anything on the way to the trail than anything else, but she looked up in surprise when Tommy spoke.

" _Dreamy Deborah_ , huh? What's that about?" His voice was quiet, but a lightness she hadn't heard until now crept in. Almost as if he found the moniker funny.

With a voice equally as soft, Deborah said, "It's... an old nickname. Everybody at school called me that because I spaced out in class, or read too much, or lost things or... because it began with a D, I guess. It's dumb." She tried to keep her voice light as well, but no matter how hard she tried, she couldn't keep a touch of bitterness out of her voice.

"Oh." From the flat, guarded response, she guessed Tommy had noticed. "I was just askin' is all. I wasn't trying to pry."

"No, it's okay." Deborah looked down at the fuse in her hand. "I'm... just a little sensitive about it, you didn't hurt anything. Everyone always says if my head wasn't screwed on just so, it'd... fall... off..." The forced cheer died on her lips, and she stopped walking, borne down by the weight of the night's events. Tommy didn't notice at first, walking past her on the trail before her hand shot out and grabbed his arm. His steps came to an abrupt halt and he looked back at her over his shoulder.

"You okay?" he began to ask, but Deborah interrupted him.

"Not that way. We need to take the other trail now." With a tilt of her head she indicated a narrower trail, headed south towards the lake. Tommy shrugged his shoulders but turned onto the other trail after her.

"What's down the other way then?" he asked.

"It's, um a... graveyard." A palpable silence filled the air. "I'm not superstitious or anything!" Deborah insisted, perhaps a touch too quickly. "It's just, really well lit over there and we'd stand out if anyone came by..."

"What's a graveyard doing all the way out here? I thought the only one in the area was Eternal Peace on the other side of town," Tommy wondered aloud, looking back over his shoulder and missing Deborah's mild distress.

She sighed a little with relief at the topic change. "I think this one dates back before the area got bought, but I don't know who's buried there. I... never ended up going to look. Kenny might have known more, but... well... yeah." The brief silence was back, and she shook her head to banish the thoughts. "Well, y'know the Jason story is real, right? Maybe his mom's buried there."

"No, I know where Pamela Voorhees is buried, and it's not there." This time it was Tommy's turn to be just a bit too quick answering, and Deborah frowned. Every time she brought up Jason or something about his past, Tommy seemed to know more than he wanted to say. It wasn't hard to tell he was hiding something, but she couldn't put her finger on just what it was.

The pace they had set through the woods was fairly slow and cautious, but Deborah couldn't help noticing that since bringing up Jason again, Tommy's breathing beside her had changed. It wasn't the heavy, labored sound she'd heard earlier after Jason had grabbed him, but quick and anxious as if preparing for trouble. "How much farther do we have to go? I don't like it out here," Tommy said briskly, glancing around from side to side.

By now the trees were thinning out, and the trail shifted to follow along a rising outcropping of rock. "Just a little more, we're almost to the cabins, but we should probably take the trail behind them. Almost nobody uses it so it's kind of overgrown, and he might not look back there." Beside her, Tommy made a soft affirmative grunt before falling silent again. The soft chirps of crickets around them were the only sounds as they reached the fork in the trail, the first cabin in the area just a short distance away.

Deborah turned onto the trail that lead around the back of the cabin, and Tommy followed, the gloom of the night deepening again as the trees seemed to close in beside the trail. For once, Deborah was glad she'd been assigned to Blair's Cove over the last week, because she knew the trail more out of memory than sight. As they walked along beside the back of the cabin, Tommy broke the silence once again.

"Watch your feet out here," he said softly, leaning in closer so she could hear.

"I know the area, I'm not going to trip over anything-" Deborah said, but Tommy cut her off.

"I know Jason's used rudimentary snares before, he might have thought to put some out here." He sighed. "Look, just keep an eye out for anything unusual; I can handle it, okay?"

The trail ahead looked just as it always did, overgrown and meandering, eventually curling off around some rocks in the distance. In all honesty, Deborah didn't see anything out of the ordinary, but she nodded nonetheless. No sense in starting a fight when they were out in the open like this; it would be far too risky and besides, she didn't really like confrontation anyway. There wasn't enough room on the trail for both of them to walk side by side, so Tommy took a step back to let Deborah lead, as she knew the area better.

Once they past the first cabin, there was a long section of empty ground before they got to the next, and the lack of cover along the left-hand side of the trail sent a wave of uneasiness through Deborah's heart. Even with the clouds hiding the bright moon, there was still a feeling of being unsafe, like someone was watching them from afar.

Without thinking about it, Deborah quickened her pace, trying to get away from the exposed feeling from that empty patch of ground. The back of the longest cabin in area loomed closer, providing just that extra feeling of security as she approached. The shadows it cast seemed to block out the imaginary eyes on her, and her shoulders sagged with relief. They were almost halfway to the bridge now, with just two more cabins to pass behind before the trail met up with the main road.

She was rounding the back corner of the cabin, when Tommy cried out. "Deb! Wait, don't-" His warning came too late and her foot came down on something that was neither dirt nor stone, followed by loud _snap_ and a hard impact into her leg. That strange sense of detachment she'd felt upon coming across Buggzy's head flooded over her again as she looked down at her feet to see the crudely-made snare clamped onto her leg, digging into her skin and staining the bottom of her pants leg red.

Moments later the pain hit, thudding up her leg with sharp pulses of fire and causing her knees to buckle. The still night was broken with her cry of pain.


	7. Chapter 7

Deborah's hands were full with fuse and flare gun and the trap, though crude, held fast against her clumsy efforts to open it. The pain in her right leg clouded her mind and sapped her strength, making it hard to do anything at all, even if her hands weren't already occupied. Fortunately for her, however, Tommy responded quickly. He dropped the wrench he'd been carrying by her side, before crouching down to force the trap open. Abruptly the pressure stopped, and Deborah staggered back away from the trap before doubling over in agony.

The trap closed with a loud snap as Tommy let go of it, and through a haze of pain, she saw him stand and run around behind her. _He's going to leave me because I'm too much trouble, right?_ Deborah realized, the faint thought sneaking through her foggy mind and bobbing to the surface like a corpse. Truthfully, he'd never promised he'd help her get anything done, and at this point she'd been more of a burden than a help where Jason was concerned. She couldn't really blame him for leaving, but she'd give anything for him to stay at the moment.

The world felt grey and hazy, even more with the heavy fog and menacing clouds overhead, and the only thing that seemed real was the burning throb of her leg. Still, a sense of self preservation took over and she forced herself to stand, intending to hobble to the nearby house. This proved to be a mistake, for putting more than the slightest bit of weight on her leg shot flares of agony up her leg and drove her off balance. Just as she started to fall, an arm wrapped around her back and kept her upright.

Deborah was in enough pain that it wasn't until she found herself clumsily hoisted off the ground bridal-style, that she realized who was helping her. Tommy grunted with exertion as he tried to re-settle her in his arms, before staggering towards the now-open door of the cabin nearby. In that moment, the amount of pain she was dealing with overrode the fear of embarrassing herself, and Deborah flung her arm around Tommy's neck and clung to him, sobbing. She'd worry about being embarrassed later, right now there was only searing agony and the warm reassurance that she wasn't alone yet.

Her ride through the cabin stopped very suddenly as Tommy deposited her hurriedly on one of the bunks, before running into the attached bathroom and coming back with the first-aid kit. He set it on the bed next to her before sitting down himself at her feet, tugging off her damp shoe, then pushing the torn leg of her jeans up to expose the bleeding, arching wounds on her leg. From her prone position, Deborah couldn't see her injuries herself, but Tommy's wince said volumes. She watched him pull rolls of gauze and bandages from the box, along with the green and white bottle of antiseptic spray as well, but before he did anything, he leaned over to pull the pillow out from under her head and toss it on her chest.

"Bite down on this, you're gonna need it. This is gonna hurt like hell," he said grimly. Honestly Deborah couldn't see how it could feel much worse than it already did, but she did as she was told, biting down on the pillow and wrapping her arms around it to hold it close to her face for good measure. And worse it definitely was. Despite bracing herself as best she could, the first touch of the antiseptic-treated gauze to her leg was a million times more excruciating than she expected, and she nearly screamed again. Tears slid down her face behind her glasses and soaked the pillow, and she clenched her teeth so hard they creaked as Tommy wrapped the gauze around her leg, over and over as tightly as he could. Then came the cloth bandage, around and around before he taped it down.

Surprisingly the constant pressure from the bandage seemed to deaden the worst of the pain, and Deborah slowly released the pillow and sat up. Tommy's brow was furrowed as he put the kit back together, but she didn't think he was really angry at her. _Perhaps,_ that tiny voice in her her mind wondered, _he might be more worried than he wants to admit._

When Tommy spoke again, his words only gave more truth to her thoughts. "I told you to let me handle any traps," he said with a stubborn frown.

"I didn't even see it!" Deborah insisted, her voice wavery from crying and exhaustion. Tommy sighed softly and stood up, taking the first-aid kit with him. She watched him walk down the length of the room to the bathroom, but as she watched the world seemed to grow less real with each step. A faint sound like the static of a television tuned to an empty station began to grow in her ears, becoming a nearly overwhelming roar by the time Tommy was back. Even with her glasses on and her vision no longer being blurred by tears, Tommy looked hazy and unfocused to her eyes.

"Are you okay, Deborah?" Tommy asked when he got close, his voice low and worried. He bent down to look at her, then sat down nearby on the bed and gently turned her face towards him. "I said, are you okay?"

To Deborah's ears, Tommy's voice seemed to be coming from a very long distance away, muffled by the static she kept hearing. When he moved her head, the world seemed to spin and her head felt like it was floating away. "I- I don't feel good," she murmured. "You're really quiet."

Tommy made a soft, worried sound in his throat that she definitely couldn't hear over the crackling in her ears as he squinted at her face and frowned. "You should lay back down, it sounds like you're going into shock." Deborah gave a few sleepy looking blinks before she nodded and turned back to look towards her feet. Then, before Tommy could get up, she laid back down with her head coming to rest on his lap.

The sudden intrusion into his personal space made Tommy flinch and nearly stand up, but one glance at Deborah's closed eyes and pained frown made him change his mind. With a large sigh, he leaned back a little and forced himself to relax. As if that was the sign she was subconsciously waiting for, Deborah also visibly relaxed, gingerly stretching her legs out across the bed and resting her feet on a rumpled mound of blankets. If it wasn't for her pinched expression and the soft periodic whimpers she kept making, he might have thought she looked peaceful.

Of course, with Deborah's head on his lap, Tommy couldn't exactly go anywhere or even make sure the house was secure, but he couldn't bring himself to move her. Instead, to pass the time as well as satisfy that nagging desire to make sure he was safe, he leaned down the bed to pick up the flare gun that Deborah had dropped during her ordeal. He twisted it over in his hands, examining the shape, evaluating the craftsmanship, and double checking that the bright orange pistol-shaped gun was properly loaded and ready for use- exactly the same thing he'd done when he picked it up at the cabin north of the lodge. Then he set it down closer to himself, in easy reach for a quick shot, just in case someone came poking around in search of the source of the screaming.

There really didn't seem to be much to do while he waited; he couldn't even spread the map out on his lap to memorize it. Thankfully, it was only a few minutes before Deborah started to stir again. Slowly her eyes blinked open, still a bit unfocused but less staring and glassy than they'd been before.

"Feel any better?" Tommy asked. She nodded slowly.

"Yeah," she said slowly, the single word seeming like a great effort to get out. "I should have recognized psychological shock sooner, but I don't think I've ever experienced it before... my professors will be disappointed in me." Despite the weariness in her voice, there was little hesitation in her choice of words, which was somehow comforting to him. Clearly, Deborah was more lucid than she outwardly seemed. The mention of her professors raised a few questions, but at the moment none of those questions were really important.

"How's your leg?" he asked, choosing to stick to questions that were more immediately useful. Deborah shrugged, her shoulders bumping against his leg as she did so.

"Still hurts a lot, but it's not like we can do much more for it."

Tommy's lips tightened a little as he glanced at her bandaged leg again. "You should try to keep your weight off it as much as possible. I did my best but-" he sighed, "-that needs a doctor."

Deborah blinked up at him, tilting her head to one side as if to get a better view of his face so far above hers. "You seem to know an awful lot about all this. Do you often find yourself needing medical attention or is it just a hobby?"

The corner of Tommy's mouth twitched into something almost resembling a smile but it didn't reach his eyes. "Wasn't exactly my choice, really. Some of it was just learning from watching other people, and some of it was necessity. And some reading when I had time; at least I've got a good enough memory for that."

A far-off expression crept into Tommy's eyes as she watched. "Well, thank you. Again. For helping, that is. You could have just left me, but you didn't, and- well it means a lot." Those darn butterflies were creeping back into her stomach, despite the lingering buzz in her ears and the pounding pain in her right leg. And honestly, she couldn't deny that there was something about him worrying over her like this that was kind of attractive.

Perhaps she was staring a bit because the distant look came out of Tommy's eyes as she spoke and he shifted his gaze to look down at her, but as she finished speaking his expression seemed to close off again. A clinging silence followed, and for a moment it looked like Tommy was about to say something, when another sound broke the silence instead.

Footsteps.

Immediately, Tommy's hand shot out for the flare gun beside him. His head flicked from one side to the other as he readied the makeshift weapon, trying to watch both doors into the room. Resistance was mostly futile at the moment anyway- if Jason caught them, flare gun or not, there was no way they could get out easily. Deborah was too injured to run and if Tommy had to carry her it would take too much time to pick her up and escape, not to mention how much slower he'd run with her weight added to his own. At this point all they could do was a fruitless show of defiance.

The door to the large main room opened all of a sudden and Tommy swung his aim towards it, nearly knocking Deborah off his lap in the sound of the door slamming into the table behind it was accompanied by the clatter of a table fan falling to the ground and a somewhat high-pitched yelp, followed by a recognizably shaken voice stammering "Don't shoot! Don't shoot! I'm friendly!" Tommy lowered the flare gun but didn't put it away, and Deborah craned her head to look at the door behind her.

Standing there in the doorway with his hands up in the air over his head, shaking like a leaf with his glasses slowly drifting down his chubby nose, stood Eric Lachappa. Deborah sighed with relief at the sight, though she thought she'd recognized his voice, and reached up to pull Tommy's hands down. "It's okay, he's a counselor, and totally harmless."

"Yes, yes! I _work_ at this camp! I'm _supposed_ to be here!" Eric said hurriedly, lowering his hands and nodding furiously. He fixed his eyes on Tommy. "So what's _your_ excuse?"

Deborah could already see Tommy's eyes starting to roll at yet again having to explain himself, so she jumped in before he could speak. "Eric, don't be rude! This is Tommy Jarvis, he lives in the area. I used the CB radio to call for help earlier and well-" she held up her hand in a sort of shrug, "-he's help."

Eric crossed his arms over his chest. "You didn't call for the sheriff? Or the hospital?"

An exasperated huff left Deborah's mouth before it crossed her mind that now she was the one being rude. "I couldn't remember which channel it was! I tried several, but only one got any results! And the power's out in Evergreen now so it's moot anyway, unless you want to try fixing it somehow." Her voice had gotten sharp and frustrated as she spoke, though some of it was admittedly from the still throbbing pain in her leg. Nobody seemed to want to trust Tommy, even when he said he was there to help them.

Eric for sure seemed to have no desire to trust Tommy. He stood in the doorway and looked him over with an almost completely flat expression on his face, save for the way his lips and eyebrows looked slightly pinched. Jenny's observation from earlier that day crept into Deborah's mind- that Eric most likely had a crush on her- and at this point it would explain a whole lot. Certainly if it were true, her lying with her head on Tommy's lap might also be part of the cause of Eric's strange expression.

A palpable tension seemed to settle over the room, with Tommy and Eric matching each other nearly stare for stare. Tommy was the first to look away, choosing instead to turn his head the other direction and reach for the abandoned fuse that Deborah had left lying on the bed with the flare gun. Fuse in hand, Tommy held it up as he returned to looking at Eric. "The phone's broken and we need to go fix it. I'm making sure Deborah gets there safely."

Eric's gaze shifted from Tommy to the thick bandage on Deborah's leg and the blood-soaked leg of her jeans. "Safe, huh? Doing a real good job there, aren't 'cha?"

"That was _all_ my fault, I wasn't paying attention!" Deborah said, pushing herself up onto her elbows and twisting her torso to look at her coworker better, despite how it made her head swim to do so. "Tommy told me to be careful and I wasn't, so don't blame him!"

"Deborah, I can handle this myself-" Tommy began, bending over to better look her in the eyes, but Deborah shook her head.

"- Just _stop_ , both of you! We don't have time for swaggering and suspicion right now! The sooner we get away from here a-and Jason, the better!" She turned her gaze to Eric. "Eric, what brought you over to this cabin? And have you seen Tiffany or Vanessa?"

Without taking his eyes off them, Eric walked over towards the two on the bed. "They're checking the other cabins. We were going to see if we could get one of the boats operational."

Tommy's eyebrows furrowed. "Operational? The boats don't work?"

Eric shook his head. "We were going to set them up on Monday. None of the boats have fuel right now, and Adam removed all the propellers so that nobody could steal them over the weekend. We've found the propellers, but we're still looking to find out where Kenny stashed the gas." He looked at Deborah. "You were over here this week, do you remember where it's at?"

Deborah shook her head. "Sorry, Eric. I can't remember much of anything clearly at the moment. I can barely remember the last few hours, let alone a few days ago."

"It's okay, I'm just gonna go look through the cabin. Maybe it's in here somewhere." A taut smile spread across Eric's broad face as he moved toward the door again. He very clearly didn't look at Tommy at all as he did so.

"I'll help look," Tommy said, standing up now that Deborah wasn't lying across his lap. "We can cover more ground if there's two of us." As he reached the doorway, he paused to glance back at her. "You should lay back down and let your leg rest a little. We shouldn't be long." If Tommy noticed the glare Eric shot him from the other room, he didn't show it. With a small sigh and an internal hope that the two of them would at least be civil to each other, Deborah laid back down on the bed to wait.

The cabin was one of the larger ones, like the one the CB Radio was kept in or the one north of the Higgins lodge where Tommy and Deborah had hidden. It had a similar design as well, so even though Tommy had never been in this particular cabin, it was at least slightly familiar. Sensing the tension in the air from being in the same room as Eric, Tommy made his way over to the room the back door opened onto. Like the previous cabin, the walls were lined with bunks and footlockers and a wardrobe or two. Nothing out of the ordinary, really. Still, he walked down the length of the room, checking as thoroughly as he could. Along by the back wall of the room, in the small corner nook between the door outside and the door to the center hall, Tommy spotted at table. It was an easily overlooked spot, and at first glance seemed to be nothing noteworthy at all, until he spotted a flash of red underneath it. When he bent down to look, he saw a tidy row of four gas canisters sitting side by side underneath.

Tommy opened the door to the large main room where Eric was searching. "I think I found what you were looking for. How many cans do you need?" Eric straightened up hurriedly, then hurried over to where Tommy was at, quickening his pace to almost a jog.

"Just one, probably," he said, following Tommy to the table hiding the gas. As Tommy rested one hand on the table and bent down, intending to grab one of the cans, Eric frowned. Quickly, he ducked down himself and dragged one of the heavy cans out to where he could pick it up properly before Tommy could do anything more.

"I can carry that-" Tommy said, but cut himself off as Eric proudly hoisted the bright red gas can off the ground.

"I got it," he said with a smug (but shaky) smile. Tommy's eyes flicked silently from Eric's straining arms, to the rapidly growing flush on his face, and then to the door leading into the hallway. He wasn't sure who exactly Eric was trying to impress, but it wasn't Tommy's fault if his pride bought him a brand-new, five-pound-gas-can-related injury. Instead, Tommy walked back to the room he'd left Deborah in and returned over to the bed she'd laid back down on.

"C'mon, we should get moving. Your friend found the gas he was looking for." Reluctantly Deborah opened her eyes again, then sat up slowly.

"I can't exactly walk very well on this leg of mine," she said, lifting it off the small blanket mound it was resting on. In response, Tommy sat down on the bed beside her.

"Alright, I think I can carry you, but don't go squirming around too much, okay?"Deborah nodded and picked up the fuse and flare gun from where Tommy had left them, before scooting around to sit behind him and wrap her arms around his neck. Once he was sure she was settled, Tommy leaned forward and placed his hands under her legs to shift her weight onto his back, then stood. For a moment it seemed like both of them were about to pitch forward onto the floor, or possibly one of the bunks nearby, before Tommy regained his sense of balance. It wasn't exactly the most comfortable position for either of them, honestly, and Tommy had to remind her once or twice not to cling _quite_ so tightly to his neck (not to mention both of them having to deal with the chilly looks from Eric once they met back up) but it was their best option at the moment.

Eric lead the way out of the cabin and down along the main road towards the boat. They made slow progress however, with both Eric and Tommy struggling a bit with their individual burdens. As they reached the last cabin before the road turned off towards the bridge, Eric changed his path and stopped outside, setting the can down before knocking on the door. They waited there in silence just long enough for Tommy to start getting antsy, glancing around as if expecting to get jumped. Then, the three were greeted with the sound of the barricade being lifted and the door opened to reveal Vanessa's serious face.

"I found the gas," Eric announced, picking up the can and pushing through into the cabin. With an uncertain glance towards Vanessa who was still standing by the door, Tommy followed close behind. His shoulders didn't relax under Deborah's arms until the door was closed again and the barricade lowered. Soon after, the interior door opened to admit Tiffany into the main room, who immediately froze upon entering to gawk at the stranger in their midst

"Eric found some gas-" Vanessa started to say, but Tiffany's eyes had strayed from Tommy to Deborah perched on his back and the clearly visible blood on her torn jeans.

"Ohmygawd, Deborah!" She walked quickly over to them and briskly flapped her hand at Tommy, indicating that he should set Deborah down. Tommy's eyes flicked from Tiffany to Vanessa standing across the room with her arms crossed, and for a moment he resembled nothing less than a deer in the headlights of an oncoming semi truck. Neither young woman seemed willing to take "no" for an answer, however, so Tommy reluctantly bent down to let Deborah climb off his back and collapse on a nearby couch.

"What the _hell_ happened to you?" Vanessa asked, coming over to fuss over Deborah along with Tiffany, now that Tommy had moved out of the way.

"Well, I kinda stepped in a bear trap," Deborah admitted sheepishly. Both girls made appropriately horrified noises, and Vanessa knelt down to examine the bandaging on Deborah's leg. "It was all my fault, really. I wasn't looking carefully but Tommy patched me up and it really doesn't hurt so bad now-"

"Wait, _Tommy_?" Tiffany said, interrupting Deborah's rambling. "Him?" She pointed over her shoulder in Tommy's general direction, but didn't turn to look. Tommy's eyebrows tightened and his eyes narrowed, but she paid no attention. "He wrapped your ankle? Not bad!" She finally glanced over her shoulder at Tommy, who was still frowning at her. "Not sure how you managed to attract a random guy to the camp this late at night but at least he's handy, right?" She leaned in close and loudly whispered, " _And cute too!_ "

Deborah's cheeks reddened as Tiffany broke into giggles. "I used the radio to call for help, okay? I know he's not the police or anything, but we're headed to Stillwater to get the phone working."

"Do you even think the Sheriff will be on call this late at night?" Vanessa asked, sitting on the couch next to Deborah. "I mean, you should definitely call the cops, but I dunno how long it'll take for them to get here. Or if they'll even believe you that some freaky dead guy's trying to murder everybody."

"Well, at the very least we can try, right?" Deborah said. "I'd like to think that at least somebody's on call?"

"I'd like to believe that I'll pinch myself and wake up at home in bed, but I don't think that's very likely," Tiffany retorted. She turned around again to glance at Tommy. "Hey, blondie? Go kick rocks for a sec, wouldja? I need to talk to Debbie here." Her eyes lowered and a wicked smile crossed her face. " _Girl stuff_ , y'know." Dismissively she waved her hand at him and snapped her gum. Tommy's frown only deepened but after a moment or two of thought he stalked off into the other room and closed the door behind him. Eric wisely picked up his gas can before scurrying out of the room as well with a mumbled excuse about fueling up the boat.

"Tiffany-" Deborah began, warningly.

"-Seriously, _not bad_ , Debs," Tiffany said, cutting her off. "Not sure what I think about all the grumpy old man glares, but hey, he's _cute_!" The devious smile was back, and she gently elbowed Deborah in the side. "So whatever happened to _Chad_? Or did that yacht sail when you got a good look at-"

" _What the heck, Tiffany_?" Deborah snapped, raising her voice and drowning her out with sheer volume and ferocity. "This is _not_ the time for this at all! Buggzy is _dead_ , okay? _And_ Kenny, _and Adam_ and... and who knows _what_ happened to Jenny or AJ or Chad." Tears pricked at her eyes, and Deborah yanked her glasses off in frustration. "And all you want to do is talk about whether or not I've got a _crush_ on some guy I barely know? _What is wrong with you?_ "

It was hard to see without her glasses, but when Deborah looked over at Tiffany again, she was almost certain she saw tears starting to run down her friend's face. The sound of sniffling told her she was right. "I'm _scared_ , okay?" Tiffany said finally, her voice shaking. "I'm really, _really_ f-ing scared right now. I _know_ we're not getting out of this, and I just- I want everything to go back to normal!" She clenched her hands into fists to keep them from shaking. "I wanna pinch myself and find out this is all a bad dream, or a prank somebody's pulling... or just... god, just _anything_ else!"

"I'm scared too," Vanessa admitted softly, leaning in to wrap her arm around Tiffany's shoulders. "But we're _gonna_ get out of this. We're gonna get that boat running, and we're getting away from this camp and I'm never _ever_ going to a lake again!" Tiffany smiled weakly, and Deborah leaned in herself to join the group hug.

When the girls finally let go and dried their eyes, Tiffany was the first to speak. "Thanks, guys. I- thanks." Vanessa squeezed her shoulder lightly as she stood, and Deborah nodded with a small smile. The door to the other room opened a small crack, and Tiffany waved Tommy over, like a queen granting a reprieve to an exiled subject.

"I think we need to get going," Deborah said with an apologetic glance. Tiffany leaned in for a quick, fierce hug before Tommy could pick Deborah up.

"Seriously though, you should snap him up while you can, Debs. You never know what might happen," she whispered in Deborah's ear, before letting go. The bright blush returned to Deborah's cheeks as Tiffany stood and stayed long after she'd climbed back onto Tommy's back.

"Good luck with the boat!" Deborah said as she and Tommy headed out the door, waving as best she could with the fuse still clutched in her fist. Then, she and Tommy started down the path over the bridge towards Stillwater.

"I don't think they've got much of a chance," Tommy said at last, once they were over halfway across the bridge. His voice was soft and grim, and Deborah suspected that intensely focused frown was back on his face.

"What do you mean?" she asked, keeping her voice low so that it wouldn't echo around the wooden roof of the covered bridge.

Tommy's shoulders heaved as he took a deep breath. "Jason knows the lake better than anyone. He drowned there once. He's been down there for about a year now, too. Boats are a really bad idea around Jason."

Deborah lowered her head to rest her chin against his shoulder. "You say that like you know from experience." The only response from Tommy was his shoulders raising and lowering in a shrug, and the silence hovered around them as they made their way across the lighted road to the field beyond. Wordlessly, Deborah directed Tommy towards the long cabin where the telephone was located, and pointed him towards the box with the fuses. They came to a stop beside the box, but Tommy didn't set her down or attempt to examine it. Instead, he tapped her arm then pointed to the ground in front of the box.

"There's a snare," he said softly. "Like the one you stepped in earlier." Deborah peered over his shoulder, trying to see what he was pointing at. At first all she saw was a pile of dead leaves, but little by little she noticed the outline of the gaping maw of a leghold trap. A shudder ran down her back at the sight.

"That wasn't there earlier," she whispered. "Can you do anything about it?"

Silently Tommy pulled the closed knife out of his pocket and held it up. "I think I can trip it safely with this, but I'll need both hands." Instead of letting her go, however, he put the knife back in his pocket and walked around the end of the house to the side door, staying carefully away from the trap. "I take it you know where the phone's at, right? Do you think you can make it to the phone and wait until I tell you to call?"

"Well, I don't know how fast I'll be, but I do know where the phone is," Deborah said hesitantly. Tommy nodded, carrying her into the house and setting her down in the small kitchen area inside. It took a second for Deborah's brain to register that he was asking for the fuse when he held out his hand. Hurriedly she placed it in his hand. "Lock the door after me, okay? I'll let you know when it's fixed." Without waiting for a response, Tommy was off out the door, thankfully closing it behind him.

The wounds in Deborah's leg still ached as she hobbled over to the door and pulled the barricade down, but if she was careful she could still manage to walk. Slowly she made her way into the side room where the telephone was located. There was a single, solitary rocking chair near the phone that she'd never paid much attention to before, but now she sank into it gratefully to await the phone's repair.

Outside, Tommy made his way back to the phone box and the trap nearby. If he was very careful, the trap wouldn't pose a problem but he needed to remove it before he could safely approach the box. He flicked open his knife and bent down. One wrong move could mean an injury as bad as Deborah's if not worse. If he could just reach that hinge, though...

_Snap._ The trap released and Tommy yanked his hand back just in time as the wooden jaws clacked together, their metal teeth devoid of prey. With the one thing keeping him from repairing the fusebox gone, Tommy gingerly opened the metal door to peer inside. By now, the heat Deborah and Buggzy had discovered was gone as was the smoke, and Tommy could clearly see the remains of the previous fuse still partially plugged into its slot. He pulled the end of his flannel sleeve up over his hand and carefully pried out the remains of the previous fuse, then slotted the replacement into the empty space.

Nothing happened.

The rest of the box itself wasn't too badly damaged and it should be operational, but the light in the corner remained an angry red. Tommy ran a hand through his tousled, tawny hair, raising his eyes up as if expecting an answer from the heavens. Instead, his eyes fell upon the connecting wires leading up into the eaves of the cabin. These cables were supposed to be connected to the fuse box outside, but now they dangled uselessly above it. Tommy stood to examine them, expecting to see frayed wires and torn rubber casings.

For once, luck was with them. The wires, instead of being cut or torn, had simply been pulled out of the box- and not by extreme force either. They seemed to have been made to be easily disconnected, and therefore easily re-connected as well. Tommy traced each wire down from the roof and plugged them back into the box one by one.

Once the last wire was back in place, the light on the front of the box began to glow a soft, steady blue. Tommy snapped the front of the fuse box shut and stood up. "It's fixed, hurry up!" he called through the window. Through the slats he could see Deborah standing up from the nearby rocking chair, then picking up the phone and dialing. A slight breath of relief ran though his body. If they could get this call off, then maybe there was at least some hope for survival tonight.

The windows along the back of the house all had the windows tightly shuttered, with no easy way for him to get inside through them. Instead, he began jogging along the side of the building, over to one of the unshuttered windows in the main room of the house. For a moment, his steps faltered and as he regained his balance a realization dawned on him.

The world had gone deathly silent.

A cold fear gripped his heart, and Tommy lengthened his stride. The closest window was all the way around the edge of the building, and he hurried to get to it. His fingers fumbled with the edge of the window pane in his hurry, but he soon had the window open. "Deb! Hurry up, we don't have much time!" Something moved outside a window in the corner of his eye, and Tommy dove for one of the pokers by the fireplace. It was flimsy and probably not much use, but it was something at least. He felt better with something in his hand.

Slowly he shifted to look through the windows for any sign of Jason, testing the weight of the poker in his hand. That's when the outside door exploded, hurling huge chunks of wood halfway across the floor. By the time Tommy had turned towards the door, shifting to a defensive stance in the process, Jason had already closed the gap and stood looming over top of him. There was nowhere to run, his back was up almost flat against the fireplace. He was cornered.

Tommy swung his arm back, intending to at least try to hit Jason with the poker, but before his arm even came close, Jason's huge hand clamped around his throat. Almost immediately, the grip around his neck was so great he could barely breathe. Jason was just too strong, even with a hand that was decomposing and could barely be called human at this point. No matter how hard he fought, only a trickle of air was reaching his lungs. Desperately he clawed at the hand trapping his throat, even as his vision spun and his feet left the floor and Jason raised him into the air.

Red faced and beginning to panic, Tommy fought harder against the hand holding him, but he was losing ground. Each second he had less air, and for every second of air lost his sight grew dimmer, greyer.

In those few seconds before he lost consciousness, Tommy Jarvis realized he was going to die.


	8. Chapter 8

As soon as Tommy told her the box was fixed, Deborah had the phone to her ear, dialing 911 as fast as she could. Luckily, dispatch picked up the call almost immediately. "Oh, thank God," she said, almost babbling into the phone. "We're at Camp Forest Green, up at the old Higgins lodge. Please send help! It's _Jason Voorhees_! He's back-"

"What kind of a prank do you think you're trying to pull?" The voice on the other end snapped, cutting her off in the middle of her frantic speech.

"Wha-? This is not a _prank_ , we need your help!" By this time, Deborah was nearly hysterical, certain that at any second the door would burst open beside her, or the phone would die on her again. "We need the police and an ambulance! He's killing my friends! Please help us!" From the other room she heard Tommy calling for her to hurry, and nervously she bounced on her good foot, waiting for a response.

"Higgins Haven you said?" The dispatcher sounded weary, but resigned. "You realize you can get fined if this isn't a real emergency-"

"Yes! Yes! Thank you! Camp Forest Green! Hurry!" It felt like ages before she was allowed to hang up, but as soon as the receiver was back on the hook, she turned to hobble to the other room and meet up with Tommy.

As she swung open the door to the main room, the sight that greeted her made her freeze in terror. The front door was in shattered pieces across the room, and Jason was holding Tommy off the ground by his throat near the fireplace. She could see Tommy's eyes starting to roll back into his head, and each attempt to get free seemed feebler than the last. The flare gun that she'd been holding onto so tightly was too risky to use in a situation like this; Tommy would almost certainly get caught in the crossfire. Instead, Deborah dropped the gun and grabbed a saucepan off the small stove by the door, and charged across the room, the adrenaline in her veins masking the pain in her leg.

"LET GO OF HIM, YOU MONSTER!" she shrieked and swung the saucepan with all her might right at the back of his head. The metal bottom of the pan hit with a satisfying _klunk_ , and Jason flinched, turning his head away from Tommy. As he turned, his grip loosened and Tommy sagged into a limp heap on the floor in front of the fireplace.

Deborah's breath caught in her throat. Was she too late? She couldn't tell, couldn't get around Jason to check, and she certainly wasn't going to let her guard down for a second until he was gone. Slowly she backed away, realizing that she was likely his next target. With her injured leg she couldn't run very well, and she was absolutely no match for him in a physical fight. Yet, deep down, she knew she had to draw him away from Tommy, just in case he was still alive.

Keeping her eyes on Jason the whole time, she backed to the door she'd come in from and fumbled for the flare gun she'd dropped in place of the pan. Just as her hand closed around the handle, she saw Jason start to move again, slowly as if waking from a dream. His head turned towards her, then the rest of his body seemed to straighten out to follow before he began walking directly towards the door in front of her. Deborah spun and staggered towards the door at the end of the long building. With all her might she threw up the barricade and yanked the door open. As soon as she was outside, Deborah turned around to pull the door closed behind her, the sight of Jason drawing nearer with each step sending shivers of fear down her spine. Still, she _had_ to draw him away from Tommy.

Much as she didn't really want to return to the campfire where everything had started, it was closer than any houses and held the possibility of something, anything for Deborah to use to protect herself. Any other time, the short walk from the main Stillwater house down to the bonfire by the edge of the lake would be the simplest thing, but with her injured leg it felt like it could be as far away as the moon. For once she was grateful for the small paved parking area between herself and the firepit.

Deborah was barely halfway to her destination when she heard the telltale sound of a machete against wood. The door wasn't barricaded anymore, but Jason seemed determined to destroy it anyway. Still, that bought her enough time to hobble off the pavement and pick her way across the uneven ground towards the campfire. There had to be something here that she could use, her life depended on it. A handful of rocks, a smoldering stick, maybe even one of the folding chairs left abandoned by the fire. Near one of the chairs she noticed something catching the light, and instinctively Deborah grabbed for it. Her hand closed around something made of chilly metal, and as she picked it up to look at it, she realized it was a forgotten lighter. Most likely Adam's- he'd been down helping start the campfire earlier and well, while she couldn't be sure, Deborah had a sneaking suspicion that Adam smoked. She stuffed the lighter in her pocket, it might come in handy at some point.

Before she could look further, a rough hand grabbed her shoulder with a force that made her bones creak and spun her around with a sudden shove. The movement was so abrupt that it threw her off balance and forced her to put more weight on her crippled leg than she expected. A sharp cry of pain was cut short as Jason's corpse-like hands clamped around her shoulders right at the base of her neck, his thumbs pressing hard against her windpipe. As Deborah struggled to breathe, her focus clouded by a haze of pain stemming from her throat and leg, the hand that was still in her pocket closed around the pocket knife Tommy had given her. He'd warned her earlier that she might have to use it and lothe as she was to actually stab someone, some primal instinct seemed to override her reluctance.

Her hands seemed to move without conscious thought, and the next thing she knew Jason had let go of her neck to reel away, the bright red pocket knife buried up to the hilt in his arm. Deborah staggered back herself, stopping just long enough to grab a fallen branch from the ground. Then, while Jason's attention was focused on pulling out the knife from his arm, she lurched forward, swinging the stick with all her might at his head. Her intention had been to merely daze him long enough to get further away, but her stick caught on a strap of the deteriorating hockey mask and as her arms naturally followed through with the swing, the stick dragged the mask with it.

The stick flew out of her hand, taking the mask with it as Deborah backed away in horror. Jason's body was already cadaverous, almost skeletal, but she wasn't prepared for his face. It was clearly misshapen even before it began to decompose, but now it was far, far worse. The cartilage of his nose had rotted away, leaving a triangular hole, and his ears were withered away on the sides of his head. His skin, or what was left of it, was blackened, shriveled and torn, pushed away in spots to reveal hints of the skull beneath. One eye stared at her, rheumy and jaundiced, while the other socket was empty, showing twisted decaying tissue in the faint light. It was all Deborah could do not to scream in sheer terror.

For a few moments, the two stood staring at each other across the embers of the dying fire, each waiting for the other to move. Then, as quick as she was able, Deborah dove for the flare gun she'd dropped when Jason had grabbed her earlier, scooping it off the ground and staggering away just in time to hear the sound of a machete slicing through the air behind her. She turned her steps towards the trail leading towards Evergreen camp, another surge of adrenaline pushing her on past the blaze of pain in her leg. The tiniest hint of a plan began to glimmer in her mind, and Deborah pressed on towards the hill and the back of a nearby cabin.

Just as she approached the corner of the cabin, she spun and aimed her flare gun directly at Jason's head and hoped for the best. Her eyesight had been weak nearly all her life, and as a result her aim had always left much to be desired. Every gym class had been an exercise in missing baskets or failing to hit anyone when playing dodgeball, and that wasn't even taking into account the fact that she'd never shot a gun in her life. So she squeezed her eyes shut and pulled the trigger, and was greeted with the loud crackly hiss of the flare hitting Jason squarely in his shriveled face.

There was no time for celebration, however. Deborah changed directions while Jason was blinded by the flare and limped away as fast as she could across the back of the cabin and around the corner. As she did so, she fumbled in her pocket for the illegal firecrackers she'd found earlier and Adam's lighter. Carefully she lit the fuse as she reached the corner of the cabin, then turned and flung the string as far up the Evergreen trail as she could, before ducking around the corner and hiding behind a scraggly bush. The hissing flare was soon replaced by the pop and snap of the fireworks beginning to burst, and Deborah strained to see where Jason had gone. She thought she saw him walk up the trail after the fireworks, but she soon lost sight of him.

Deborah waited a minute or two before moving again, barely daring to breathe while she hid. It certainly seemed like Jason had given up, and she was deeply worried about Tommy. She took the risk and retraced her steps, hobbling back to the cabin she'd just left as fast as she could. Glancing over her shoulder in case Jason might pop up behind her again, Deborah limped along the road and back inside the house. She picked her way through the debris from the door and over to where Tommy still lay. Carefully, so as not to put more strain on her ankle, she knelt down and timidly reached out a hand to touch him. Still warm. Not wanting to risk hurting his neck more if he was still alive, she reached instead for his wrist and felt for a pulse. Her own heart seemed to flutter for a second or two when she couldn't find one, but finally she felt a steady flicker of life under her fingers.

The position he was in looked uncomfortable, all twisted up, half-on and half-off the stone base of the fireplace, but she didn't want to move him from fear of hurting him further. Instead she reached a hand up and brushed the hair off his forehead so she could rest her hand on it, waiting for him to wake up on his own. Almost as if that was the sign he was waiting for, Tommy's breaths deepened and his arms moved just a little.

With her own heart beating faster, Deborah leaned in, watching as his mouth moved a little and his eyelids fluttered soon after. Then his face twisted into a grimace, and his eyes slowly opened. At first he squinted hazily at the ceiling before his eyes fixed onto her. "Deb-orah?" he asked, his voice scratchy and barely audible. With a small gasp of relief she smiled, removing her hand from his head to lean in better.

"I'm here! I was scared you were dead!" Her voice was choked and breathless as tears of relief began to well in her eyes.

"Th-ought I was t-oo," he rasped, still almost too quiet to hear. "Whe-re's-"

"-Jason?" she finished, anticipating what he would ask. "I don't know. He chased me for a bit, but I tricked him into going away. At least, he didn't come back so I guess something else must have caught his attention." Tommy's face got all pinched up, and he started struggling to stand. Before she could fuss that he was probably going to hurt himself even worse if he moved, Tommy was halfway into a seated position.

"Can't st-ay here-" he gasped. As he pushed himself up he wobbled, eyes dancing and unfocused and he gulped for more air, wincing as the muscles in his throat and jaw moved. "He's toy-ing with-us, he'-ll come ba-ck-" His shoulders sagged for a moment. "He w-ants me. He's c-oming ba-ck." With a sigh, Deborah leaned in and placed her hands on his arm and back, supporting him as best she could.

"Can you even see?" she asked. Tommy shook his head to the side for a second before he winced, sucking in a sharp breath through his nose before looking straight ahead again. Instead, he raised his hand up a little, wobbling it a little from side to side, an unspoken "so-so." Deborah sighed again, heavier, before sliding his arm that was closest to her around her shoulders and putting her strength into helping him stand.

"That's what I thought," she grumbled softly. "I'll be your eyes, c'mon. There's another cabin nearby, we can hide out there." With a final effort on her part, she pulled Tommy to his feet, holding his arm across her shoulders and wrapping her own arm around his back. Then, slowly, they began to walk out of the house.

Each step felt agonizingly slow, and Deborah tried to keep Tommy informed of things around them. Such as, "We're going through the door now, careful," or "There's a step up here." She'd never noticed how uneven the ground was by Stillwater Camp until she had to guide someone who could barely see across the area.

It was only a few dozen yards away, but by the time they reached the remains of the night's campfire, Deborah was growing weary. Tommy was walking on his own, certainly, but he was still leaning on her as well. Honestly he was getting heavy, and her ankle sparked hot fire up her leg with each step. Carefully she guided him around the smouldering embers of the campfire, pausing when she reached the spot where she'd been sitting before this nightmare started. She hadn't noticed earlier, but Rob's body next to her chair was gone. On her chair, however, sat the abandoned bag of marshmallows, a slightly melted bar of chocolate and the ever-missing water bottle she kept misplacing.

Trying as hard as she could not to jostle Tommy, Deborah leaned over to pick up the water bottle, clipping it on on the top of her pants along with her walkie-talkie. Then, she picked up the bag and chocolate bar, before continuing their slow hobble towards the nearby cabin. Tommy looked over at her with a questioning look on his face, but didn't speak. All their energy was being put into getting someplace safe for the moment. Then, and only then, they could rest.

Neither of them spoke until after they'd reached the cabin. Deborah let go of Tommy long enough to barricade the door behind her when they entered the front room, then draped his arm over her shoulder again to lead him into the back room. There, she led him over to one of the two plush couches on either side of a low coffee table and held onto his arm while he sank appreciatively onto the soft cushions. Deborah dropped the bag of marshmallows and the chocolate bar on the table before hobbling to the back door and barricading it as well. Then, she walked back and sank onto the other couch with a soft whimper of relief. Even without weight on it, her leg still throbbed like fire, and she couldn't help wondering how much damage she was doing by walking on it so much.

On the couch across from her, Deborah could hear Tommy's breath becoming more even and less ragged, before it seemed to catch in his throat and release in great, harsh-sounding coughs. She unclipped the water bottle from her belt and placed it on the table, pushing it towards Tommy a little to get his attention. "Here," she said softly. "It's just water, and I didn't really drink much out of it earlier so it's mostly full. I hope you don't mind my germs-" Tommy grabbed the water bottle from the table and took a few swallows before she even finished her sentence. Wearily he closed his eyes and tilted his head back, but the coughs seemed to have stopped, and his breathing seemed smoother.

"Thanks," he said at last, his voice less scratchy than it had been before. He opened his eyes and caught her gaze for a moment or two, before Deborah blinked and averted her eyes to the bag of marshmallows on the table. Whatever frightening look had been in his eyes back in the lodge an hour or so ago, it wasn't there now, and the hint of vulnerability she'd found in them now brought those butterflies back into her chest. Tiffany had teased her about having a crush on Tommy and Deborah had denied it, but now the creeping realization that Tiffany had been right began to whisper in her ear.

She had to find another topic of conversation or she'd lose the ability to talk, just like she always had around Chad.

"Um, I don't mean to pry, but you've got some kind of history with Jason, right?" On second thought, the topic of conversation she picked was most definitely the wrong one, but once Deborah started speaking she couldn't stop the flood of words pouring out of her mouth. "I mean, you mentioned that he was after you and you said you've encountered him before and... " She floundered, suddenly at a loss for words and feeling very sheepish indeed.

Tommy didn't meet her eyes again, instead taking another sip of water. Then, he spoke. "How much do you know about Jason?" he asked.

Deborah frowned. "Not much, really. Only what Kenny told us at the campfire circle tonight- Um, that he drowned as a kid and his mom killed a bunch of people at the camp, only he wasn't dead? And then _he_ killed a lot of people and was allegedly killed by some kid and... gosh I don't remember, he lives in the lake?" She shook her head. "It's all a blur really, and after everything that happened I don't remember it all."

"Yeah, that's about right," Tommy said with a small nod. Deborah raised an eyebrow, one corner of her mouth twisted up into a skeptical frown.

"Really? I didn't really believe all the stuff about Jason drowning as a kid, then not drowning and growing up in the woods, or how many people he supposedly killed or that he lived in the lake or whatever." She glanced over her shoulder towards the front room. "Or well, I didn't, but after tonight I guess I can't doubt it anymore. But... you want me to believe that some 10-year-old kid killed him?"

From across the coffee table, Tommy fixed an intense gaze on her, that dangerous look creeping back in behind his eyes. "Why not? They say it's amazing what a person can do when they're scared and full of adrenaline. People can lift cars or fight bears... or even kill a man two times your size and weight." A light began to glimmer inside Deborah's head, illuminating a puzzle she hadn't even realized she'd been staring at this whole time. With her eyes wide and mouth beginning to gape, she stared back at Tommy in surprise. "And for the record, the kid was 11 years old," he finished simply, his voice soft.

"It was _you_ ," Deborah whispered. "You're the kid in the story." With a sigh Tommy closed his eyes and nodded.

"That was a really long time ago. I was just a scared kid and I just wanted to keep my sister safe. I still don't know how I did it, but I can't forget it either." His voice seemed squeezed, which after being throttled into unconsciousness earlier didn't seem too out of the ordinary. Still, something about the haunted look in his eyes gave Deborah pause. It was as if he really didn't want to remember the events or even talk about them, but at the same time couldn't stop himself from talking about them anyway. She couldn't help noticing the way his hands shook for a second or two, before he clasped one hand onto the other to keep it still.

Tommy's breathing seemed labored, his cheeks pale, his eyes lowered and nearly shut, but still he spoke. "They said I was disturbed, overwhelmed with grief. Nobody even told me Jason had killed my mother for at least a day. They sent my sister to live with my dad while I-" His words trailed off as his breaths got deeper and more uneven. A pinched look crossed his face as he squeezed his eyes shut, his now separated hands resting in his lap in fists so tight that his nails dug harsh marks in his palms.

For the last two years at college, Deborah had majored in Psychology, but even without spending hours each week studying up on the human brain, she could have told that Tommy wasn't in a good place right now. She knew she wasn't qualified to be a therapist, at least not yet, but she couldn't help feeling like she had to do _something_. Clearly the memories Tommy was reliving were hellish, and this was neither the time nor place to work through them. Not to mention it was honestly quite unnerving to watch, especially as she was beginning to realize just how much she had become emotionally invested in his safety.

Deborah leaned forward, reaching her arm out and plunging her hand into the bag of marshmallows, making as many loud, crinkly noises as she could manage. There was little she could do to pull Tommy's attention away from his thoughts, but perhaps this would work as a distraction. To her surprise, the noise worked like a charm- Tommy's shoulders snapped up and he raised his head, eyes wide open and confused as if he'd stopped himself from dozing off. But only for a moment, however, before he winced with the pain of straining his bruising neck muscles.

"What-"

"Marshmallows?" Deborah asked, taking a couple out and nudging the bag towards Tommy. "There's some chocolate too, if you want some of that. It's just leftover s'mores materials from the campfire tonight, but I figured we might need some short-term energy."

"Oh." Tommy's reply was short, and his eyes darted from her to the bag of marshmallows and back again. Then he leaned forward to take one of the fluffy white marshmallows out of the bag. "Thanks." He popped it in his mouth and chewed slowly, and while his breaths were still deep they began to lose the jaggedness they'd had before. Finally he swallowed and sighed heavily.

"So yes, the kid that killed Jason all those years ago was me. And he should have stayed dead- _would_ have stayed dead, if I hadn't f-d up." Tommy shook his head slowly, careful not to aggravate the sore muscles in his neck more than he had to. "I wanted to be sure that Jason was really gone, so about a year or so ago I decided I had to see for myself. And-well, I dug him up." Deborah frowned at him, her face a mask of confusion as she tried to figure out his motives for doing such a ridiculous thing. "Look, I was intending to cremate him, okay? But there was a storm and he got struck by lightning and the next thing I knew he was crawling up out of the grave like something out of a bad movie. I tried to put him back in the lake, but I guess I f-d that up too."

The memory was clearly getting Tommy agitated again, but something in his tale had caught Deborah's attention. With a soft laugh, she murmured half to herself, "' _I beheld the wretch – the miserable monster whom I had created_.' You're a real Modern Prometheus, Tommy Jarvis."

Tommy froze, his hand buried once again in the bag of marshmallows. "Huh?"

Deborah ducked her head, a faint flush coming up over her cheeks, and she ran her fingers over her bangs to cover up her embarrassment at being heard. "Um...I was referring to _Frankenstein_. "The Modern Prometheus" is the subtitle of the novel. You've never read it?"

"I think I saw the movie on TV once or twice?" Tommy said, sitting back with another marshmallow in his hand. "But I didn't have access to a lot of books for a while."

At this point, Deborah had moved from playing with her hair to fiddling with her glasses as a way of trying to hid the blush spreading over her face. "Oh. I took a Gothic Literature class last semester and we had to read it for class. I just meant- I was just meaning that your story sounded a bit like Victor Frankenstein's. The 'brought a monster to life who ruins his life, then devotes his life to finding and killing it,' part that is." A nagging voice in the back of her head sprouted up, reminding her that this wasn't just a story, it was a man's actual life, and the blush got deeper still. "I- I wasn't trying to offend you or anything! I didn't-"

"It's fine," Tommy reassured her, a tiny smile starting to creep back onto his face as he watched her flounder. "My life can't get much wierder, so comparing it to a book isn't going to hurt my feelings." Deborah chuckled softly, lowering her eyes to her hands resting clasped in her lap. That uncomfortable silence seemed to have crept into the room again, and she was still mentally kicking herself for even bringing the topic up. In an attempt to cover up her sudden attack of nerves, she leaned forward without really looking, hoping to secure a marshmallow or two as a means of hiding her silence by eating.

Instead of finding the crinkled plastic of the bag, however, Deborah's hand found something else- Tommy's hand. It seemed her companion had thought the same thing as her at nearly the same time, and when Deborah raised her eyes to look at him, she found his own staring back at her. Several moments passed with neither willing to move or draw their hands back from the table between them. Deborah still bore the blush from her earlier embarrassment, but to her mild surprise the faintest pink hue began to cross Tommy's cheeks as well as he stared at her, though his eyebrows knit together in confusion. A tingling sensation ran through Deborah's hand and up her arm as they sat there in their silent tableau. Rationally she told herself that it was just her circulation or maybe her muscles getting tired, but the butterflies had started again in her chest and she couldn't help noticing how the warmth from Tommy's hand was a really _nice_ warmth.

Tommy was the first to move, retracting his hand and a few marshmallows which he quickly turned his attention to as a means of covering up the sudden awkward turn their conversation had taken. Likewise, Deborah grabbed a few from the bag and turned her head towards the front of the house as she ate. Another time her thoughts might have been focused more on the possible spark she had just felt, but more pressing issues crept to the front of her mind. Namely the fact that it had been a fairly long time since Jason had left and that was starting to worry her.

"So what now, Tommy Victor Jarvis?" she asked, turning back to look at Tommy. He paused with a mouthful of marshmallow to meet her eyes with confusion etched on his face, both from the name and the unclear question. "What do we do about Jason? I mean, the police can't really do anything, right? So what's to stop him from following us if we just leave? Or moving to other buildings in the area like people's homes?" Tommy swallowed with a grimace, took another sip of water and sighed.

"Well, I've got some ideas. He's not _completely_ without weaknesses, you know."

Deborah tilted her head to one side. "So what, we shoot him in the head with the shotgun you misplaced? Stake to the heart? Bury him back in the dirt where he came from? Tie him to a tree and wait for daylight?"

"He's not a _vampire_ ," Tommy retorted, wrinkling up the side of his mouth in disgust. "I guess he could qualify for a zombie but that's not it either." He sighed. "Look, from all the research I've done over the last several years, my guess is that Jason has two real weaknesses- " he held up his hand, raising a finger as he said each item, "-his mother, and the lake. His mother's not an option, and he probably knows the lake itself better than anyone, but maybe if I can put him back in the lake, he'll actually stay there this time."

"So you've got a plan on how to actually _do_ it?" Deborah asked, rocking from side to side a little as she thought. Tommy shrugged.

"Maybe. A little." He paused for a moment and thought, then took the map out of his pocket and unfolded it across the table, pushing the remains of the bag of marshmallows and the untouched chocolate bar to the side.

"Jason's got to have some kind of home around the lake, from before he was killed. There might be something we can use against him. Maybe it's even in the immediate area. "

Deborah leaned over to look at the map too, but shook her head at Tommy's words. "I doubt it, we were all over this area this week- if anyone had found a building that wasn't on the map, we'd know about it."

Tommy rubbed a hand across the back of his head for a moment or two before reaching out to stab his finger onto the page. "What about this island? What's on there?"

"Nothing as far as I know," Deborah said. "But it's off limits. Nobody's allowed over there because it's not safe- there is a dock on the island, but there's a lot of trees and stuff too. Kenny decided it was off limits because it would be too hard to see anyone on the island from shore, and too risky if there was an emergency."

A thoughtful look crossed Tommy's face as he stared at the island. "Well, even if there's nothing there, it's as good a place as any," he murmured. Then, he folded up the map, took one last drink from Deborah's water bottle (after Deborah declined a drink when he offered it to her) and stood up. "We've spent too much time here."

Deborah herself stood up, noting with relief that her ankle didn't hurt nearly as badly as it had when she sat down. "Where are you going?" Tommy was already moving towards the front room, and she did her best to keep up, leaving the remains of their snack behind. Without answering, Tommy pushed open one of the front windows and climbed through, waiting on the other side until Deborah did the same, wincing a little bit as she put just a touch too much weight on her leg for a second. Once she was on the other side, however, Tommy began to move again, walking towards the campfire at the edge of the lake. He stopped by the cold embers of the fire, staring at the small island visible only a short ways off shore.

"There. That's where I need to go." He turned to look at Deborah. "You don't need to come, I can do this on my own."

She froze, a whisper of fear creeping up her spine. "You're _nuts_. What if something happens-"

"I've got to stop Jason. I'm the only one who can," Tommy said, and the light from her flashlight threw sharp shadows across his face, accenting the intensity of his gaze.

She pursed her lips together and shook her head slowly. "You know how I called you Victor Frankenstein earlier? Well, I was wrong. You're not Dr. Frankenstein, you're Captain Ahab, and you're going to get yourself _killed_ chasing off like this!"

"I've got to do this! Jason's just going to keep killing people if I don't and nobody believes me anyway, and besides it's _my fault_ that this all started in the first place!" There was a frantic quality to Tommy's voice now, and the scratchiness from before crept back into it. "Look, I don't know _what's_ gonna happen, and maybe I _won't_ come back, but I'm taking Jason down even if-"

" _Don't!_ " Deborah cried out, surprising even herself with how panicked she sounded. She knew exactly what Tommy was about to say, but she didn't want to hear it, as if not saying it somehow made everything better. The unspoken words hung heavy in the air above them. _...Even if it kills me._ Tommy stared at her, seemingly frozen, the dangerous intensity still lingering behind his eyes like a coal fire. Deborah swallowed hard, Tiffany's words from before lingering in her thoughts. _"...You should snap him up while you can, Debs. You never know what might happen."_ So, before Tommy could turn away or do something stupid, she summoned up her courage and spoke.

"I-" Her words faltered for a second, but she steeled her nerves and pushed through. "-I hope you don't think I'm presumptuous, b-but, well, we might not live through this and if I don't say anything I'll never forgive myself..." The butterflies in her chest seemed to be trying to force their way up her throat to choke her and her cheeks had gone a rather obvious shade of vermilion. She'd never actually admitted her feelings to anyone before and even now, when the threat of death loomed around every corner, the fear of rejection felt a thousand times worse. Then the thought of Tommy dying alone on that island on a fool's errand and herself living with the guilt of never speaking up loomed over her, and she found herself stumbling over her words in her haste to get them all out before it was too late.

"I think you're really cool, Tommy Jarvis, and you're smart and kind and brave and your hair looks really nice...and I'm really glad you were the one who answered my call tonight..." Deborah clasped her trembling hands together and squeezed her eyes shut before she continued, "...a-and if we actually get out of this alive, I'd really like to get to know you better..."

A light touch on her chin made her eyes open, and she stared up at Tommy. Sometime after she closed her eyes, he'd gotten so much nearer to her, and his proximity set her heart beating fast against her ribs. Slowly, cautiously, he bent down, lowering his face towards hers, pausing for a moment when he got near. When she didn't pull back, he made his move, softly pressing his lips to hers. The kiss itself was brief, almost hesitant, but Deborah clung to each short second like a raft in an endless sea. The touch of his lips sent a jolt of electricity coursing through her body, and the rapid pounding of her heart roared in her ears. Even the warmth of his hand holding onto her shoulder was a moment she did her best to mentally file away so that she would never forget it. By the time Tommy straightened up and she dared to open her eyes, Deborah was still standing there dumbfounded, caught in a daze of possibility.

"Was that what you were trying to say?" Tommy asked at last, his hand still resting on her shoulder. Deborah nodded several times, opening and closing her mouth a few times before finally managing a soft " _...wow_ ," through her shuddery giggles. She'd expected him to reject her outright or maybe make a vain promise to see her again sometime, not to actually _kiss_ her. Not that Deborah was going to _complain_ about it, though; she just didn't exactly know where to go from here. Her fairly conservative family had never let her date during high school, so one kiss in and she was already in unfamiliar waters.

"You're pretty cool yourself, you know," he said softly. "I'd like to get to know you better too." Maybe it was that earnest intensity that she'd liked so much from the moment he first spoke, but Deborah couldn't help believe that he meant it. Still, behind it there was a sadness in his eyes as he pulled away, and a hollowness to his words as if he didn't expect to make it back. Deborah's breath caught in her throat.

"I'm gonna hold you that, Tommy Jarvis," she said. "So you'd _better_ come back, you hear me?" A faint, wry smile crossed Tommy's lips and he gave a small nod. Then, without another word he began to take off first his jacket, then the flannel shirt underneath. Deborah's eyes widened.

"You're not going to _swim_ over there, are you?" she asked, appalled. "There's been a corpse in that water for, what, a year? That water's got to be _full_ of nasty bacteria!"

"It's the only way over there," said Tommy, handing his discarded shirt and coat to her. "Hold onto this for me, okay? They'll just weigh me down." Clumsily Deborah wrapped her arms around the bundle of cloth, realizing all of a sudden that he was fully expecting her to stay put.

"But-"

"This is something I have to do by myself." Tommy turned to walk towards the water, and as he walked his foot kicked something. At first it seemed like a rock, until he actually looked at it. There, on the ground where it had been left earlier that night, was Jason's hockey mask. Silently, Tommy picked it up and unclipped one side of his suspenders, sliding the strap through the straps of the mask and fixing the clasp back onto the top of his jeans. It was a longshot, but there was a chance the mask might be useful for a distraction. He paused at the edge of the water and looked over his shoulder at Deborah, standing by the firepit behind him.

"Stay out of sight, don't let Jason find you," he said. "The cops shouldn't be too long getting here." With that, he turned and walked into the water until it was deep enough to swim. Finally, he took a huge breath and dove under the surface of the lake, leaving only ripples behind.


	9. Chapter 9

Silence. It lay over the world like a heavy blanket, punctuated only by the quiet sounds of frogs and crickets, and the occasional gust of wind. It draped itself around Deborah's shoulders, weighing them down as surely as Tommy's discarded shirt and coat she carried in her arms.

She was alone.

Alone, wrapped in a whirlwind of emotions with no foreseeable end.

She stared dully at the surface of the lake, watching as ripples broke the stillness and sent tiny waves lapping against the dirt at the shoreline. That moment back there, that had been what she wanted... right? To know that the person she was growing to like felt the same way as she did. Yet, in the silent emptiness left in Tommy's receding wake, came the unbidden whispers of endless worries.

_Was it real? Did he actually mean it? Or was it just an act to pity the "poor nerdy girl" who probably wouldn't last the night?_ The thoughts left tingling dread creeping down her arms and clinging to her heart like a ball of black smoke, slowly eating away at her confidence. Again, the fear that she wouldn't be able to survive to see her family again, or even to hold Tommy to the vague promise he'd made resurfaced in her mind.

It would be so easy to just remain where she was, standing by the lake and waiting for Tommy to return. Something in the heavy silence felt like it was begging her to stay, to keep herself locked in one place for the rest of time. Simply gathering enough energy to walk felt like an impossible task, even without her still throbbing ankle. Yet she knew deep down she couldn't stay. The shoreline was far too open and vulnerable; Jason must still be prowling around and he'd see her in no time if he walked close. Staying where she was wasn't even an option.

Tommy had said for her to get out of sight where Jason couldn't find her, but she knew she couldn't do that either. If she allowed herself to hide and Tommy wound up dead, she'd never forgive herself. And more than that even, hiding while he fought seemed cowardly somehow. Even if she couldn't do much, she knew she'd rather be trying to help him stop Jason than waiting in some tent or under a bunk for Jason to find her after he finished with Tommy.

And there was only one way over to the island now.

With the wound on her leg and the unhygienic nature of the lake, not to mention Tommy's cast-off clothing in her arms, she'd never be able to swim over safely but that didn't mean she couldn't get to the island at all. Eric, Vanessa and Tiffany had figured out how to get one of the boats back together, and she knew where the other gas cans were, after all. It wouldn't take too much effort to do the same and get a boat for herself to use.

It was the only plan she had at the moment, anyway.

Reluctantly, Deborah took a deep breath and turned away from the water, forcing herself to walk. Each step felt like what she imagined attempting to wade through hip-deep mud to feel like-slow and ponderous and taking more effort than she expected. Still, after several steps it seemed to be a little easier, even if she did have to stop at regular intervals to let her ankle rest. Above her, the sky seemed to be growing ever darker, heavy with the threat of oncoming rain. It shut out most of the moonlight, giving her slightly better cover in the open expanses along the road. With labored steps, she made slow but steady progress towards the covered wooden bridge and the Blair's Cove Campground beyond, and it gave her time to think.

It had been such a _long_ night, even if she couldn't quite figure out what time it was anymore. After midnight, certainly, but Deborah had no clue how many hours had passed since the campfire. All sense of time had stopped the moment that knife left the lake. She blinked back tears at the memory-they'd been so _happy_ together before that. Nobody could have imagined that Kenny's story was so terrifyingly _real_ back then.

Maybe if he hadn't told the story, maybe if AJ hadn't asked about ghost stories or Vanessa hadn't set up that tasteless prank. Maybe then everyone would still be together and happy. She glanced towards the lake as she turned onto the bridge. Of course, then she wouldn't have met Tommy. She'd still be blushing and hiding whenever Chad walked into the room, all expensive clothes and fashionable hair and brilliantly white smile. Slowly she shook her head-that naivete wasn't something she wanted back.

Still, it just wasn't fair that her friends had to die like that. Buggzy... she'd never actually found his body. He died drawing Jason away from her, and all she'd done was scream. A thought crossed her mind though-Tommy had left the barn to get something earlier, and when he'd met up with her and Adam at the car, he'd been carrying a baseball bat. And then there was the knife he gave her, the one she'd used to stab Jason in the arm only a short while ago. Hadn't Buggzy had a knife with him, as well as his bat?

_I guess someone found you after all, Buggzy,_ she thought. In a way, he'd managed to save her life more than once tonight. Poor Adam and Kenny too; she hadn't even been able to mourn them properly, and now wasn't the time or place to do so. Even with the walls and roof of the bridge, she felt exposed and vulnerable. And horrible as it seemed, she found she couldn't even muster up enough tears to cry anymore, like her eyes were wells that had run dry.

The end of the bridge drew near, and she turned her steps towards the cabins to the north. The gas canisters were up there after all, and she'd need one if she was going to get one of the boats working. The road was sandy and a little slippery underneath the soles of her shoes, not helped by the slight hill that the cabins were built on. The slight wrenching of her ankle from each time her feet slid a little and the extra weight she had to put on it to climb up the hill made the wounds on her leg burn and throb again. _Just a few more feet,_ she told herself, _just a few more feet and you can rest._ In front of her loomed the first of the line of cabins, she could take a break by there.

As she drew close, however, her footsteps faltered. Something was very wrong with one of the windows on the side. It wasn't just open, it was shattered completely, leaving broken crossbars and great jagged pieces of glass hanging from the window frame. Pieces of glass that, as she drew closer, she saw were streaked with red. She froze, staring at the window for a moment before her eye was drawn downwards to the space in front of it.

There, contorted on the ground, lay the body of Eric Lachappa.

Deborah didn't scream this time, but she clutched Tommy's jacket closer, her fingers clamped around the soft sherpa collar for comfort. Hesitantly she stepped forward, curious despite herself about what had happened while she was away.

His twisted position and the many deep cuts across Eric's body seemed to indicate he'd been thrown through the window from inside, but something else caught her eye as strange. His hair and shoulders were dripping wet, as if someone had held his head underwater while he struggled. She was no detective, however, and speculating on what happened was best left to the police. Providing they ever got to the camp, that is.

Deciding she'd seen enough, Deborah backed away. If Jason had killed Eric, he must have come over here at some point after they'd left, and that made her worry about the boats. It was pointless running off to get the gas if he'd sank the boats after all, so it would be better if she checked. It also conveniently got her away from staring at Eric's corpse out of morbid curiosity.

The path down to the dock was twisty and surrounded by trees, which combined with the lack of sunlight made it very hard to see where she was going. Deborah unhooked the flashlight from her belt and turned it on, holding it out before her to light her path. As she walked, she moved the light a little from side to side without even meaning to, illuminating the trees on either side of the trail.

Which meant when the first flash of color caught the light, she couldn't be sure what she saw, until she deliberately swung her flashlight beam towards it. Deborah immediately regretted it, as she muffled the frightened cry she made by burying her face in the armload of clothing she was carrying.

On one of the trees by the side of the trail, pierced through by a short, sharp branch, hung the body of Tiffany Cox.

Deborah's breath caught in her throat. First Eric, and now Tiffany too! And on her way to the boat as well! The heavy metallic scent of blood washed over her as she reeled away, gagging. Tears stung her eyes as she hobbled faster towards the boat-Tiffany had been so scared when they'd last talked, and now exactly the thing she'd been afraid of had happened. But much as she would have liked to, there was no time to stop to grieve-Jason had surely been here, and that meant he'd likely come across the boat, and Vanessa as well.

Sure enough, as Deborah drew near enough to the dock to see around the side of the small wooden storage nearby, there was a boat just off the dock drifting listlessly on the water. The boats themselves should have been stored properly, out of the way where they couldn't be damaged or stolen. This boat, however, seemed to be in working order-the outboard motor was properly set, and it didn't appear to be taking on water. Still, there was no sign of Vanessa nearby, and Deborah stared out at the water for any glimpse of her blue tracksuit drifting nearby.

Still nothing, but with how murky the water seemed tonight, that was little comfort. After what she'd just seen, Vanessa's chances of surviving seemed all but non-existant. Deborah stepped out onto the dock, trying to be as silent as possible as she gauged the distance to the boat. Depth perception honestly had never been her strongest skill, not with her eyes as weak as they were, but the boat wasn't too far away. Farther than she could reach for sure, and she didn't really want to try swimming to it, but if she could find something to reach with, she might be able to get the boat to drift over to the dock again.

She glanced around the area, looking for something suitable to use. There wasn't anything around that she could see at first, until she noticed the small wooded area she'd just crossed through. Thankfully, with all the trees nearby, there were several good sized branches littering the area, so Deborah set down Tommy's shirt and jacket and went to fetch a nearby stick to use as a pole. Then, she crouched on the edge of the dock and reached as far as she could.

The stick just barely reached, far enough to tug at the side of the boat with a knot jutting from the branch. For a moment or two, the boat remained where it was, bobbing slightly on the water as she tugged at it before reluctantly drifting back to the dock. It bumped up against the end, sluggishly, and Deborah carefully maneuvered it around so that she could get in, placing Tommy's clothes on one of the seats in front of her. Then, she tugged at the starting cord for the engine.

The engine stuttered, coughed and stalled. She tried again, with the same results. Once more she pulled the starter cord and finally the engine started, purring softly behind her. With a glance over her shoulder just to make sure there was no sign of Jason prowling along after her, she pulled away from the dock and out onto the open water of the lake.

After encountering the remains of the last of her friends by the dock (save for Jenny of course, and heaven knows where she was in this mess), Deborah couldn't help feeling a bit paranoid. Each tiny jostle of the boat felt like Jason trying to capsize it, each time the water splashed against the sides turned into hands reaching out of the water after her. It wasn't a very long ride to the small dock on the island, but her nerves were so on edge, she couldn't help noticing every single second that passed. Even the gentle purr of the engine was deafening.

Finally the boat bumped gently into the side of the dock and she turned off the motor. Getting out of the boat with her injured leg was a bit more of a challenge than she'd planned for, with the boat throwing her off balance if she tried to stand, but she managed to scoop up Tommy's clothes and clamber up onto the dock. Relief washed over her as she moved towards the shore and away from the anxiety of riding in the boat. Even if she had no idea what was on the island ahead, at least she could have a chance to respond. The boat, simply put, was a death trap.

A small, overgrown trail lead steeply away from the dock towards the center of the island, and Deborah hobbled along it. Scraggly trees lined the sides, and patches of thick undergrowth crowded the trail, catching at her clothes as she walked. She'd never noticed just how many hills there were in the area until she had to try walking up them when she could barely walk. Thankfully, the hill itself was small, and the trail wasn't very long. A few feet from the dock, the trail rounded a corner and lead to a small clearing of dirt and rock, and tucked away by the mouth of the trail was a small building.

It seemed to be cobbled together from scrap, mostly. Sections of metal or wood, bits of scavenged siding, a half-hearted attempt at a window in the front and a large section of the roof covered with a tarp that draped down near the shabby doorway. The building had most certainly seen better days-it looked more abandoned than anything, with some parts even having fallen off nearby, littering the ground with sections of wood or bits of corrugated metal that had rusted off. It wasn't out of the realm of possibility that Kenny had come across the small shack at some point, leading to the island being ruled off-limits. Indeed, the shack itself looked almost like it could have been the product of some local kids making some kind of fort, which any other time would likely have been Deborah's guess at its origin.

Now, however, she had a different guess. Tommy's mention of Jason possibly having some kind of house around the lake came back into her mind, along with the thought that maybe, just maybe, there'd be something helpful inside. The dark clouds hung heavy overhead and the distant rumble of thunder broke the silence around her. If nothing else, the shack would provide some shelter from any rain that decided to fall.

She walked the short distance to the shack. The wooden door hung open on hinges that were all but decayed, and she peered around the doorway before entering. A small puddle of water lay just inside the door, with a wet trail of footprints and a trail of droplets leading further in. As she entered, as quietly as she could, she spotted the source-Tommy Jarvis himself, crouched in the center of the floor with his back towards her as he surveyed the room, looking for all the world like a tiger about to pounce. The silence of the world around her felt far too heavy to break with talking, so instead she took a few cautious steps over before reaching out her hand to touch him lightly on the shoulder.

Immediately, Tommy shot to his feet, spinning around as he did so and drawing back his fist to strike. His punch narrowly missed her head, most likely only because at the last second he realized just who had approached him. Deborah clung tightly to the armload of clothing she carried as she stepped back, shocked at the wild look she'd seen in his steely eyes. Evidently Tommy was shocked at himself as well as his hand dropped back to his side, his breathing ragged and his eyebrows lifting slightly in surprise before they snapped down close over his eyes.

"What the _hell_ are you doing here?" he hissed fiercely. "I told you to find someplace to hide!"

"I-" The expression on his face made her words falter. Anger? Fear? She couldn't tell, and it took all her courage to speak when he was glaring that way. "I- I couldn't let you do this alone! It's way too dangerous! What if you get hurt? What if- what if something awful-"

Abruptly, Tommy grabbed her arm and yanked it towards himself, pulling her off-balance with the amount of force he put into tugging on it. With her arm pulled away like that, Deborah lost hold of the bundle of clothes she was carrying, and they fell to the floor of the cabin in a heap. Tommy simply walked briskly around them, unfazed as he pulled her along behind him towards the door. "How did you get over here?" he asked, sparing barely a glance in her direction.

"I used one of the motorboats," Deborah answered, wincing as she hobbled to keep up with his pace. His fingers dug into her arm painfully. The ground outside the cabin and down along the trail was far too rocky for her to navigate easily at the pace he was setting, and she stumbled with nearly every step. "Tommy, the others... they didn't-"

As the path reached the dock, it widened and flattened out, letting Deborah catch back up. Tommy had taken only a few steps onto the wooden boards before he froze and swore under his breath. The boat she'd ridden over was half-grounded in the shallows and listing to one side, with water seeping into the hull. One thing was certain: she hadn't left it that way, and if Tommy hadn't known she'd taken a boat over... A chill ran down her back that had nothing at all to do with the faint breeze drifting over the lake.

"Back, back," he urged, turning and pushing her ahead of him up the trail. Her good foot caught on a rock, tossing her weight onto her other side and bringing tears to her eyes as she bit back a shout of pain. Her stumble brought a soft groan of frustration from Tommy, and before she knew it Tommy had spun her around, bent down, wrapped his arms around her waist, and tossed her over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes. The suddenness of the movement and the impact of his shoulder into her stomach took her breath away, but she didn't struggle as he stood and walked back to the small shack as quickly as he could.

Around them as they trekked back along the trail, the world seemed to have gone eerily silent again. The frogs and crickets had ceased their chirping, and the only sound left was the crunch of Tommy's boots on the dirt, and the faint peals of thunder in the distance. Soon they reached the cabin, and Deborah again felt her world spin as Tommy deposited her onto something just a few steps inside the door. A quick glance showed her resting place to be a shabby looking toilet, tucked into a small alcove of the room. Her face wrinkled with revulsion and she started to stand, but Tommy pushed her shoulders down, forcing her back to a seated position.

" _Stay. Put._ " Tommy said, jabbing his finger downwards in front of her face for emphasis on each word. "This is between me and Jason, and I don't want you getting hurt too." His eyes looked less angry now but no less intense, leading Deborah to realize his actions before hadn't been anger at all. If anything, he was terrified-terrified for her safety, and likely for himself and the danger he was about to put himself into as well. Yet if he had any second thoughts about his plan, he didn't show them.

Deborah opened her mouth to speak, but Tommy held up a finger to silence her. Then, he yanked a ragged curtain across her view, shielding her from view. "Stay out of sight," he warned, and she heard him walk away from her hiding place.

* * *

Tommy had been able to examine the room for several minutes before Deborah had shown up, so he knew exactly what he was looking for. An old firewood axe was stuck in a nearby wall, likely left there by Jason years before. It took a few strong tugs before it came free from the wall and Tommy nearly lost his balance in the process. The metal head was growing rusty, and the blade was likely not very sharp from all the time spent lodged in a wall, but it was at least some kind of weapon. It would have to do.

Again he walked around the pile of clothes Deborah had dropped on his way to the door. There was no sense putting the shirt and jacket back on; the bulk would only hinder his movements, and besides, if by some miracle he lived through his plan, he might want them back. It wasn't that cold out on the lake anyway, and he'd probably be moving around enough to stay warm in a few minutes. Still, he shivered a bit as he entered the clearing outside the shack.

It was now or never-his last chance to turn back. But of course, turning back wasn't an option really, not if he wanted the nightmares to stop. And one way or another, he vowed they'd stop tonight.

"Jason!" he shouted, as loud as his hoarse, half-strangled voice could get. "I'm waitin' for ya! Come and get me!" He gripped the axe handle tighter to keep his suddenly sweaty palms from losing their grip. "C'mon, Maggot Head! I'm waitin'!" He looked turned from side to side as he called, looking around for signs of movement. As he inhaled again, about to start another round of taunts, something caught his eye, and he turned to look.

Rising up from the water's edge, and stalking ever closer up the trail was the cadaverous form of Jason Voorhees.

Tommy locked his eyes on his adversary and widened his stance, his hands gripping the axe in anticipation. He'd asked for a fight, and there was no backing out now.


	10. Chapter 10

Thunder boomed through the moonless night as Jason reached the end of the trail. The ground beneath Tommy's feet shook with each slow, deliberate footstep his adversary made. Despite the numerous times he'd stood in Jason's presence, or cowered from the hallucinatory representations his mind had cooked up, there were two things that hadn't changed from the very first encounter-the overwhelming, oppressive feeling of hatred rolling off the gigantic form in front of him, and Tommy's own stifling fear.

But he couldn't let Jason think him afraid. Not out of pride so much as self-preservation; if Jason knew the way Tommy's chest felt paralyzed with fear or the way his palms were sweating so much he could barely hold onto his axe, Jason would have the advantage. That was something Tommy couldn't _afford_ to lose. He couldn't afford being afraid. Frightened people made mistakes, and any mistake could mean not just failure, but death.

"Yeah, that's it. C'mon, maggot head! C'mon!" he taunted, backing away a little to draw Jason closer. For a moment, Tommy took his eyes off Jason to glance at the nearby shack. If nothing else, he needed to draw Jason away from the little building to give Deborah a chance of surviving. With each passing moment, Jason drew nearer to Tommy, and further from the shack.

The trees across the clearing loomed closer, and Tommy forced himself to stop before he reached them. He needed someplace to retreat to if things went badly. And still Jason walked closer. It was all Tommy could do to not just turn tail and flee.

Jason seemed to be in no hurry to reach Tommy, despite the festering hatred that certainly burned in his heart towards the one who had killed him all those years ago. His steps were slow and deliberate with the air of someone completely unafraid of the possibility of failure. _He's toying with me_ , Tommy realized. With each second, the anticipation of Jason's actions grew, compacting layers upon layers of fear into Tommy's heart. It was so intense even Tommy's breathing seemed choked by the oppressive atmosphere.

The machete in Jason's hand glittered as he swung it up into the air, slicing downwards towards Tommy's head. Just in time, Tommy raised the axe in his hands, keeping his grip on the handle wide as he shielded himself from the blow. A shockwave rippled through the wood and down his hands as the machete struck the handle with a skull-shattering blow, and Tommy flinched for a moment from the impact. Then he pushed up and away on the machete with all his strength, knocking Jason just the slightest bit off-balance, before dodging in the opposite direction.

Jason righted himself after having his hand and machete forced away, and slowly turned to face Tommy. Again the machete flashed, aiming for his head, and again Tommy blocked and deflected, dodging to the side again. His suspicion that Jason was just toying with him was almost confirmed; if Jason truly wanted to murder him, it would have happened right now. Instead, he was letting Tommy attempt to fight back, knowing full well that there was little Tommy could actually do to him this time.

Once more the cycle repeated-strike, block, deflect, dodge-with Tommy's steps nearly taking them in a full circle. This time, however, after he dodged, Tommy shifted the axe in his hands and swung it at Jason. The blade sliced across Jason's abdomen, cutting through the rotting fabric of his shirt and the festering tissue beyond. Tommy staggered back from the force of his swing as the axe came free, his eyes never leaving Jason's rotted face.

Slowly, almost thoughtfully, Jason lowered his head to look at the damage with his one rheumy eye. Then, just as slowly, his head came back up to stare straight at Tommy. Clearly, the axe had done basically nothing except make Jason angrier.

Jason raised his machete again, and Tommy instinctively raised the axe handle to block, but this time the swing came slicing in sideways. With only moments to spare, Tommy changed position and stopped the attack, but blocking so many heavy strikes with the rough axe handle was making his hands sting and his arms shake. The axe handle was looking battered as well. Tommy wasn't sure how many more blows it or he could take before shattering.

The answer was swift in coming, as Jason brought his machete up and struck downward at Tommy's head once more. With a grunt of exertion, Tommy brought up the axe to block again with all his might.

The axe handle splintered in half in his hands, and the force of the blow knocked him to the ground. Just like that, his one line of defense was gone. Overhead Jason loomed, silent, menacing, waiting to see what Tommy would do next. Tommy crawled backwards away from him, still clutching the shattered pieces of the axe in his hands, but he knew he couldn't move fast enough to escape another blow. He needed a distraction.

Gritting his teeth, Tommy threw first the solid wood half of the axe right at Jason's face, then the side with the rusted blade, before standing as quickly as he could and sprinting for the trees on the edge of the island. Jason's free arm rose to protect his face from the projectiles, giving Tommy the tiny bit of time he needed to reach the sparse tree cover.

Seconds after Tommy dove behind a particularly large tree, something impacted on the bark nearby, showering him with a spray of splinters. Instinctively he ducked his head, and in the process saw a thin knife drop to the ground beside him. His breath caught in his throat. He'd never seen Jason rely on projectiles before, but then again, his encounters with Jason in the past had been brief. And wasn't there a report of one of the police officers during the last incident being killed by some kind of dart? He couldn't remember, the last year had been a blur for the most part.

He leaned back against the tree, slowly craning his neck around the side to catch a glimpse of Jason's position. The tree was too big to see around well, so he leaned further, squinting through the darkness towards where he'd last seen Jason. Something whirred past his ear, sending a small breeze across his face, and he pulled back instinctively. Seconds later came the soft _thunk_ and singing vibration of a knife stabbing deep into a tree nearby. Had the knife been just a few inches closer... Tommy's heart pounded in his chest. He had to keep moving, or Jason would either finally hit him, or give up and just chase him down.

Tommy's pushed off the tree, his legs shaking a little beneath him. It had been a long night full of stress, and the constant adrenaline and late hour were beginning to wear on him. But he didn't have time to rest. The next tree was only a few feet away. He shot out from his hiding place, sprinting as fast as he could to reach the next hiding spot. Moments after he swung behind the trunk of the large tree, another knife implanted itself in the bark just inches from where he hid. He pushed off again, running to the next tree as fast as he could.

Each time he darted into the open, he heard the whirr of a knife, each missing him by the tiniest of margins. But Jason had to be running low by now, right? There was one last big tree before the rocks became too overwhelming for plant growth, and the last knife had been the closest one yet. There was no doubt in Tommy's mind that Jason was getting frustrated, but there was always the chance that there were no more weapons for Jason to throw. Tommy took a deep breath and ran.

His legs were shaky as he charged across the gap, and he nearly lost his balance as his foot stepped on a root he didn't see at first. It was just the opening Jason needed. As Tommy twisted his body to flatten his back against the tree trunk, a flare of white-hot pain shot up his left arm. With a shout of pain, he clapped his other hand over the spot, sliding behind the tree in a vain attempt to put a tiny bit of distance between Jason and himself. Only when his back was pressed up against the tree as firmly as he could, did Tommy slowly remove his hand.

The bright red blood coating his palm and the sudden spike of pain made him wince, drawing in a hissing breath through his teeth. Still, he was lucky-the cut wasn't as deep as he'd feared, but the pain and bleeding were a problem. He might be able to fight through the pain itself, but at the rate he was bleeding, he'd end up light-headed and dizzy before long. He needed to stop the bleeding.

Gritting his teeth against the pain, Tommy released his wounded arm and fumbled for the knife tucked away in the pocket of his jeans. He flicked it open one-handed, then set about cutting off the sleeve of his grey-blue shirt at the spot where Jason had hit him. Moving his arm enough to pull the sleeve off over his hand made him gasp as the cut strained with his movement, but he managed to wiggle the fabric free. Then, hoping that Jason was more devoted to toying with him as opposed to outright killing him, Tommy clumsily set about wrapping the cut off sleeve around his bicep over the cut, holding the fabric in place by clamping it against his side with his arm and tying a knot in the ends with his free hand and his teeth.

The pain still bloomed through his arm, and a red dot was spreading across the remains of his sleeve, but it would hopefully keep him from bleeding out. At least until his job was finished, anyway. Tommy held the closed pocket knife in his hand as he stole a glance around the tree. It couldn't be his imagination that Jason was closer now than he was before. He probably got tired of waiting for Tommy to move again. Tommy gripped the knife tighter-he had a job to do, and there was nobody else who could do it for him. He just needed to be brave about it.

With steel in his eyes, he stepped out from behind the tree.

* * *

From her position in the tiny stall that had once been Jason's bathroom, Deborah could see none of this. Her view was entirely the shabby, threadbare cloth that Tommy had pulled in front of her. She'd heard him shouting a minute ago, but now it had grown uncomfortably quiet. Her frown deepened as she stared at a small hole in the blue fabric covering the door. Tommy was so _stubborn_. Truthfully, she couldn't see what use she'd be in a fight, what with her wounded ankle and abysmal grades in gym class. Still, he could have at least let her try instead of relying on his suicidal overconfidence, right?

Either way, she wasn't going to sit any longer on this disgusting toilet seat, waiting to hear the sounds of Tommy dying outside her door. If this was-as she suspected-some abode of Jason's, then maybe Tommy was right earlier. Maybe there _was_ something here that could be used against him somehow. She just needed to look around, and she couldn't do that from where she now sat.

As quietly as possible, she lifted up the edge of the curtain and slipped out, careful not to pull it aside and alert Tommy to her plans on the chance he was still watching the house. Then, she began to look around for clues.

The front room didn't give much help. What little furniture was there was broken or weather-worn to the point it wasn't usable, and there seemed to be little else of interest really. Old rusted buckets, some rusting or broken tools, a dull machete long since forgotten. At the end of the room, however, was an open doorway into another room, and she cautiously entered, switching on her flashlight to see better.

There were no windows in the room, and as she swept the flashlight across the room, it made the contents of the room cast eerie twisted shadows on the wall. Along the right-hand wall, near the back, was a crude set of shelves, nearly empty and barely standing. But the sight that caught her eyes and made her reel backwards in horror was the sight in the center of the room. On a small, low table, dotted with the melted remains of long-since extinguished candles, sat a head. It was decayed and shrivelled nearly beyond recognition, but there was no doubt that it had once belonged to a person. Despite having clearly sat there for years, however, it surprisingly still bore at least some of the rotting skin and patchy hair that had belonged to its original owner. Around the table were three corpses, all withered and decayed and skeletal, left like offerings to some forgotten god.

A realization flooded Deborah's mind as she stared slack-jawed at the sight. The legend at least had said how much Jason had adored his mother, and she'd just found the reality of it. He'd even placed bodies he had killed near the shine with her head. If she'd been looking for a weakness, it was here.

For a moment she considered the head, but the thought of touching it made her stomach roll. Instead, her eyes fell on the table in front of the head. There sat what looked to have been a grey sweater, before the moths and years had nibbled away at it. She couldn't even tell if it was safe to move without it falling apart in her hands. However, while she was thinking, she heard a loud cry of pain from outside-Tommy's voice. Before she could talk herself out of it, Deborah grabbed the musty garment, tugging it on over her head. The choking scent of undisturbed dust and mildew and mold caught in her throat and gagged her, but Deborah refused to budge. This might just save Tommy's life.

With one last glance around the room, Deborah turned on her heels and walked as quickly to the front door as she could. As she passed a pile of old wooden boards by the door, she switched the flashlight to her left hand, then grabbed a plank with her right. The flashlight she raised up to head height, hoping to obscure her face with the light as she marched towards Jason's huge figure across the clearing.

Her steps faltered for a moment when she drew close. Jason stood facing away from her, his arms wrapped tightly around Tommy's chest like a vice. Though Tommy was almost looking in her direction, he was clearly more preoccupied with his current predicament than anything else. His eyes were half shut, his jaw clenched with pain, as she watched him wriggle and raise his arm. Suddenly Jason let go, staggering away and staring at the bright red knife sticking out of his chest. Tommy hit the ground hard with a loud gasp of pain near the machete Jason had dropped to pick him up.

Before Jason could switch his attention from pulling the pocket knife from his chest back to killing his nemesis, Deborah spoke up. "That's enough, Jason!" she called, putting as much force and maternal command as she could into her voice. Jason paused, the extracted knife still in his hand. "Jason, look at me. Mother is talking to you." Slowly his head turned towards her, the rest of his body following shortly afterwards. His hand opened, the forgotten knife falling to the dirt at his feet. "You've done a good job, Jason. Mother has a reward for you." He blinked, tilting his head to one side as he listened. Deborah poured all the sweetness she could muster into her words as she coaxed, "Come closer, that's a good boy. Mother is proud of you."

Traces of confusion crossed Jason's corpse-like face, but a few moments later he took a step towards her. "That's my boy, come on, just a little closer..." His steps were slow and hesitant, but the more she spoke, the closer he came until he stood so close that all she could smell was the reek of decaying flesh rolling off him.

"Good boy, that's my Jason," she cooed, slowly raising her hand with the plank of wood still gripped in it. Keeping Jason's gaze locked on her own, she raised her hand over her head and brought the board down with all her strength on Jason's head. The shock and sudden force drove him off balance and collapsing onto his knees before her. Quickly, Deborah dove aside with a shout of "Now, Tommy!"

The whole time Jason had been moving closer, Deborah had been watching Tommy behind his back. His movements were slow and labored, but as soon as Jason had turned away, Tommy had grabbed the machete and struggled to his feet. As Jason had walked towards her, Tommy had been inching forward as well, the machete held in both quivering hands. Now, as Jason fell to the ground, Tommy leapt forward, his eyes wild. He swung the machete up over his shoulder and struck Jason on the side of his head with a strangled, " _Die_!" The machete stuck for a moment, and Tommy yanked it out, staggering back a step before striking again and again with the blade, shouting with each hit, the screams of his sister from all those years ago echoing in his ear with each blow. Finally, he drew back the blade and stabbed straight for Jason's heart as a peal of thunder rumbled overhead.

The machete stuck fast against tissue and bone as Jason fell flat onto the ground and lay still, yanking the hilt from Tommy's blood-smeared grasp.

Time seemed to congeal around them. For several long moments Tommy just stood there, staring at Jason's limp body without really seeing it, his breaths coming in painful, shuddering gasps. Little by little, his shoulders began to droop until he finally lowered his head with a shaky sigh. Deborah's gaze drifted over to him, and a pang of concern struck her heart. Everything about Tommy's posture and the vacant look on his eyes made him look so very utterly alone. Tentatively she stepped forward and placed her hand on his shoulder.

Instantly Tommy startled, jerking his shoulder away from her touch as he twisted to look at her, his eyes wide and staring like a frightened deer. Then he bent nearly double, gasping in pain and wrapping his arms around his chest.

"Tommy, are you okay?" she asked. She started to raise her hands to touch him, but stopped as she thought of the way he'd flinched away just moments before. "It's _over_. We-we _won_." Her fingers ached to touch him, if only to alleviate some of the pain he was feeling, but instead she simply clasped her hands together in front of her chest. "Jason's _dead_ , Tommy. It's all over."

Tommy shook his head, his eyes dull. "It's _not_ over. I've gotta put him back in the lake, or he'll just come back again." Slowly he unwrapped his arms from around his chest and took a few staggering steps towards Jason's body. He crouched down and took hold of one of Jason's feet before standing up and taking a step backward, intending to drag the body with him. As he began to pull, however, Deborah watched Tommy's body stiffen as he gasped in pain again. The foot he'd been pulling on slid out of his hands.

Tommy hunched over again, wrapping his right arm across his chest to place his hand on his ribs. "I need your help." The words were soft enough she barely heard them.

"What?"

"I can't do it on my own, I need your help," Tommy said, his voice stronger this time. Deborah shook her head, even though he wasn't looking at her.

"What makes you think _I_ can help? I could never budge someone that big even if my ankle wasn't hurt!" She stared at Jason's body. He had to be 200 pounds for sure, even with all the decay. "You're certain he has to go in back in the lake?"

Tommy turned to look at her, his eyes less dead than they'd seemed before, but his gaze no less intense. " _Positive_. It's the only way to be sure he won't come back."

"He came back after you put him in the lake once before, right?"

Their eyes locked, and Tommy was the first to look away. "Look, I don't know how he came back. _Something_ must have woke him up. Probably building _another camp on the lake_." His words couldn't have been more pointed if they were carved out of knives. Deborah frowned at him, but couldn't get up the energy to argue that of course she had nothing at all to do with the camp starting up. And besides, from the way Tommy was holding his side and the glassy look to his eyes, she rightly guessed that his reasoning was blurred from pain.

Instead, she hobbled over beside him, clipping her flashlight to her jeans as she walked, then bent to take hold of Jason's other foot. It was all she could do to not drop it immediately when she felt how skin-crawlingly slimy the ragged fabric of Jason's pants felt, not to mention the revulsion of his decaying flesh. She gritted her teeth and glanced over at Tommy, who likewise had grabbed an ankle. Together they managed to move the heavy body nearly a foot before the pain in Deborah's ankle got too bad, and the strain on Tommy's arms and chest made him double over with a strangled cry. He clutched his left arm to his chest, his hand on his ribs while he pressed his right over top to stifle the pain from his wound.

For the first time, Deborah noticed Tommy's missing sleeve, and the red stain on the cloth tied around his bicep. Her ankle momentarily forgotten, she took a few steps closer and reached out a hand to hover above his arms. "Tommy, you're..." She bit her lip, swallowing the very obvious statement that nearly escaped her mouth. "You need to get that looked at," she said instead.

Tommy leaned back away from her hands, almost without thinking. "We have to get this done first."

" _How_?" Deborah asked, despair creeping into her voice. "Neither of us is strong enough to move him right now, not in the state we're in! And besides, even if we could move him, how do we get him out into the lake? The boat's wrecked!" She waved her hand towards the dock for emphasis. "We won't be able to get off this island _ourselves_ , let alone putting a, what, 200-pound corpse in the lake somehow! And even if the police do come, it's not like anybody's going to think to look out on the island for us..."

As she said the last few words, she turned to look out at the lake and her words trailed off into nothing. Something was moving on the surface of the lake, but the lack of sleep was starting to drag on her and she wasn't sure she could trust her eyes. Sluggishly she blinked, trying to get her eyes to focus correctly, but all the crying she'd done earlier had left her eyelids feeling gummy and strange and made her vision blurry even with her glasses. But, it looked almost like... almost like a boat.

She took her flashlight off the waistband of her jeans and swung the light out towards the lake. After a moment or two she began to flick it off and on a few times, trying to blink out an S.O.S., but in her exhausted state the signal ended up somewhat garbled. The shape on the water kept moving closer, and before long she was certain that what she saw was indeed a boat. She took a few steps towards the dock, but paused, not wanting to leave Tommy behind nor turn her back on Jason's body. Instead she held her flashlight up as long as her arm could stand it, hoping it was visible from the lake.

A few moments after she was forced to lower her arm, the soft rippling water sound of a boat pulling alongside the dock reached her ears. "Is there someone up there?" a man's voice called from the dock, and Tommy moved to look, as if coming out of a dream. A man stood on the docks by the boat, peering up the hill towards them.

" _Ye_ -" Deborah said, softer than she wanted. Swallowing, she tried again. "Yes! Yes, up here! Please help!" Even though her arm was tired from holding up the flashlight, she raised it to wave for his attention.

The man unclipped a flashlight from his belt as he walked towards the trail up. "Just stay put," he called. He flicked the light on as he approached, lighting up his broad, friendly-looking face as he drew close. "You the kids that called for the Sheriff?"

Desperately, Deborah nodded. "Yes, thank you for coming, Officer-" She paused to let him fill in his name.

The man shook his head with a soft chuckle. " _Deputy_ Bennett. I'm afraid you've just got me tonight; Sheriff figured it was a prank call since you-know-who was mentioned." He smiled wryly.

Deborah's face fell. "A _prank_?!" she asked incredulously, on the verge of tears, but before she could say more, Tommy pushed his way forward.

"It's not a _prank_!" he snapped, bright spots of color springing to his cheeks. "Do you think I did this to _myself_?" He gestured to the makeshift bandage on his arm. "What about her leg?" he asked, pointing at the bloody hem of Deborah's jeans. "What about the bodies all over the camp, huh? Is that a f-ing _prank_?" His mouth twisted up into a grimace. "None of you have _ever_ trusted me. You don't believe _Jason_ did all this? Well he's right over there," he pointed behind himself with his uninjured arm, "and if we don't hurry you're going to have a _lot_ more evidence that this isn't some _prank_." There was a challenge in Tommy's eyes as he stared at the deputy.

The deputy didn't argue, however, simply raised his eyebrows with a shrug and walked in the direction Tommy had pointed. As he drew close, the man's face contorted for a moment or two at the heavy sickening odor of the corpse, as well as the sight of Jason's decaying body. Before he could ask how something so obviously dead could have been walking around murdering people, Tommy walked over beside him, his left arm still wrapped around his chest. With a clear glance at the deputy, Tommy bent down and raised up one of Jason's legs.

"Rigor mortis hasn't even set in yet. Tell me again how this is just a _prank_." Tommy's tone was deadly serious. Deputy Bennett raised his hands in surrender.

"Look, kid, I'm new around here. All I said was the sheriff thought it was a prank, and honestly I'm starting to believe he was wrong." He shook his head. "I don't know how _he_ ," the deputy pointed towards Jason, keeping his hands in the air, "managed to be walking around like that, but I can't exactly deny what I see with my own eyes."

Tommy let out a breath he'd been holding and closed his eyes for a second in relief. "He can't stay here. Jason has to go back into the lake where he belongs or he'll _never_ rest." He shot a momentary glance at the lake on the other side of the trees. "I've got a plan, though. I know how to put him back there, but I need some help. You brought a boat, right?"

The deputy nodded. "I didn't find anyone in the camp when I looked around, but I saw some lights and heard some noises from this island so I decided to take a look. Took a little fixing but there were some boats by the docks and the parts were nearby."

"The boat we have is ruined, we can't use it," Deborah spoke up.

" _We_ can't ride in it, but _Jason_ could," Tommy said. "The boats aren't big enough for him and us too, but if we can plug the holes in the other boat, we could drag it out into the lake and let it sink." He looked over at Deborah. "I saw some rags in the shack over there earlier, do you think you can get them? The deputy and I will move Jason to the boat."

Honestly, Deborah wasn't looking forward to having to walk more, but she squeezed her eyes tight and nodded. Tommy nodded back, a tiny hint of a smile gracing his lips for a moment. Then he turned to the Deputy. "Do you think you can help me move him?"

"I'll do my best," Deputy Bennett said, bending down to grab one of Jason's feet and grimacing at the feeling. Together, however, they managed to drag Jason out of the clearing and down the path to the docks, with only minimal stops to catch their breath, or for Tommy to double over to hold his ribs in pain.

The rags Tommy had sent Deborah to find were just inside the doorway. Quickly, she took off the filthy sweater she had on and collected Tommy's discarded clothes, before picking up the rags and carrying the filthy scraps of cloth down the trail as well. Tommy, Deputy Bennett and Jason's body were all down at the dock by the time she got there, and Tommy took a few rags from her hand as she passed him. "Start plugging the holes, we just need it to get out to the middle of the lake." The deputy grabbed one or two as well, and with all three working at once, the boat was soon whole enough for their purposes. Then, Tommy directed the deputy and Deborah both to help him lift Jason off the ground and onto the boat, which they did with more than a little struggle.

Finally, Tommy looked over at the deputy. "We've got to make sure he stays in the lake. Jason's got enough chain around his neck to work with, but I don't have a lock." He met Deputy Bennett's eyes, then glanced pointedly at the deputy's handcuffs, before locking his gaze back onto his face in a silent request.

The deputy frowned, but unhooked the handcuffs. "The sheriff's going to _kill_ me," he murmured, handing them over. Tommy took them with a solemn nod, then set about wrapping the chain around one of the seats of the boat and handcuffing the end solidly to the rest of the chain. With a large sigh, he turned to face them.

"Okay, let's get this over with," he said softly.

Tommy helped Deborah climb into the other boat, then let the deputy get in and start the outboard engine. Meanwhile, he slid the boat with Jason chained to it off the shore and into the water, pushing it to the end of the dock before climbing into the boat next to Deborah and the pile of clothes he'd discarded. Then, they slowly sailed away from the island dragging Jason's boat behind them.

About halfway across the lake, Tommy indicated they should stop, and steered Jason's boat alongside. Then he reached in and pulled the rags out of their holes, watching as the boat quickly filled with water and began to sink. Even though his mouth felt dry from the long night, Tommy leaned over and spat after Jason's body as it sank below the surface of the lake.

"Yeah, f- you too, Jason," he muttered darkly. "Go back to hell where you belong." As the last glimpse of the boat sank out of sight through the dark water, whatever adrenaline keeping Tommy going seemed to drain right out of him. His shoulders sagged and it was all he could do not to topple into the water after Jason.

Against all odds, he was still alive, and Jason was at rest in the lake. They had _won._


	11. Chapter 11

A reverential hush fell over the world as Jason's body disappeared into the water. Tommy's shoulders visibly sagged and Deborah watched his balance waver as all the built-up tension fled. It was only when he seemed about to fall into the water himself that she lunged forward, hands ready to catch him... but there was no need. A second or two later, Tommy regained his balance, and he sat up, one suspender strap sliding half off his shoulder. He bent over the water again, with the white mask in his raised hand, before tossing it too into the water with a hollow splash. Deputy Bennett waited for a nod from Tommy that it was time to leave.

None of them spoke. Perhaps it was out of respect for those Jason had killed, or even in deference to Tommy's bleak mood, but whatever the case nobody seemed to feel that speech was needed. As the boat started up, Tommy's balance wobbled again, and this time Deborah's hands were there to steady him. She expected him to pull away or flinch the way he had before, and while she could certainly feel the muscles in his back ripple at her touch and his shoulders tense, with a sigh his shoulders sagged yet again and he didn't fight it.

Slowly the boat drifted along, Deputy Bennett steering it up the river that lead through the camp. A peel of thunder rippled overhead, and the faintest of raindrops began to fall, dappling the surface of the lake. Beside Deborah, Tommy's eyes kept drifting shut. It had been a long night, longer than he'd had for a while, and without adrenaline to keep him going, keep him ignoring the pain, it was a fight just to sit up. But it was a fight he was losing. Hesitantly, Tommy leaned towards Deborah, his weariness allowing him to do something he would otherwise stop himself from doing.

He leaned in close and laid his head on her shoulder.

Now it was Deborah's turn to tense, but it wasn't from fear or a desire to avoid human contact. For her it was merely surprise. Here she was, sitting on a boat with the man who had just saved her life, who in the last hour had _kissed_ her, who she'd noticed time and again seemed lothe to touch anyone... this same man now had his head voluntarily resting on her shoulder. She barely dared move in case it scared him away again. Cautiously she slid her arm around his back, resting her hand on his side just above his hip bone.

Tommy's muscles twitched under her touch, but his head on her shoulder got heavier. He had to be exhausted. As they drifted along in silence, Deborah started to realize that the small tremors going through her shoulder were not, in fact, from the boat. Tommy was shivering. Somehow, despite seeing him swim away across the lake, she had barely noticed that he was still damp after all this time.

She pointed at the shirt and jacket by her feet in a silent question. Tommy simply shook his head against her shoulder. _He probably doesn't want to get them bloody_ , she realized. The shirt he was wearing was undeniably a mess and wearing anything overtop of it would ruin the other piece of clothing.

Silently the boat neared the dock at Higgins camp. The rain was starting to pick up, dropping fat raindrops on all of their heads at unexpected intervals. Tommy's shivering hadn't stopped, but Deborah kept her arm around him, hoping to help drive away some of the cold. Finally, with a gentle bump, the boat pulled up to the dock and stopped. Neither Tommy nor Deborah seemed in much hurry to move, but they could tell from the way the boat rocked that the deputy had gotten out. With a heavy sigh, Tommy sat up,stretched a little-being careful not to move his injured arm much-then climbed out of the boat himself, using Deputy Bennett's offered hand as support. Then both men turned to help Deborah out, taking extra care not to put more strain on her leg than necessary.

Normally, it was only a few minutes walk to the lodge, but with Deborah limping the way she was, it took a good deal longer than normal. After the first few limping steps, Tommy walked up beside her and draped her arm across his shoulders to let her lean on him for support. He slowly wrapped his injured right arm around her back, the only sign of the pain he was in registering in the way his jaw clenched. Thus they made their way across the dirt parking area to the front porch of the lodge: slowly, painfully, through a light drizzle, with the Deputy leading the way even as he glanced over his shoulder frequently to make sure they were all right.

The first thing Deborah noticed as she and Tommy entered the lodge, was that somehow the lights had come back on. The large main room was warm and inviting, filled with the soft golden glow she'd come to expect in her week of training and the soft crackle of the fire in the fireplace. If she ignored the smashed door leading to one of the back rooms, it could have easily been any other night at Camp Forest Green. She and Tommy stood, leaning on each other, partially blocking the front door as they let the peaceful atmosphere of the lodge chase the shadows from their hearts.

"Debbie, oh my god!" A familiar voice broke through the silence, followed by running footsteps as Jenny Myers ran over from the kitchen to sweep her friend into a back-cracking bear hug. "You're all right! You're all right!" she babbled, rocking side to side as she clung with all her might. "You never checked in on the radio, I thought..."

"I'm fine, Jenny!" Deborah replied, her voice weary. Jenny finally let go, holding her at arms length to make sure Deborah hadn't somehow come back with extra (or missing) limbs. Her eyes widened as she saw first Deborah's bloody, torn jeans, then Tommy's own crudely bandaged wound.

"I wouldn't call that _fine_ , Debbie," she said, firmly, indicating the bandages and wounds. "How-" Jenny cut herself off and shook her head with a worried noise. "I guess I should just be glad you're both _alive_ , really. Thank you for bringing them back here, Deputy." In the rush of feelings from knowing Jenny had survived, Deborah had almost forgotten about him.

Deputy Bennett nodded. "Just doing my job, really. But I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask all of you some questions about what happened tonight. Protocol, really, but I've got to follow it." A faintly sick expression crossed Tommy's face at the thought of the questions, or possibly the sheriff, and he wobbled slightly on his feet. "It won't be right this second," the Deputy continued, "I've got to go outside to my car and check in. Gotta let them know it's real so the sheriff can bring some more officers over, and an ambulance or two." _For the bodies_ , Deborah thought, feeling a trifle sick herself. "I'll be back in a few minutes, so don't go anywhere." As he left, the drizzle outside became a full-out downpour, and from a flash of lightning, Deborah could see the deputy sprinting to a nearby police car.

"Okay, both of you, go wait on the couch by the windows," Jenny said, pointing to the bigger of the two couches by the fireplace. "You look like hell, and I'm not having either of you passing out on the floor before the deputy comes back. Just sit down and stay put, I'm going to get the first aid kit for... _Tommy's_?..." she waited for a nod of confirmation, "...arm. I won't be long." She shooed them towards the end of the room with the fireplace, before taking off up the spiraling staircase to the second floor.

Deborah sank gratefully on the couch, relaxing into the soft seat and feeling the tension ebb out of her legs. Beside her, Tommy collapsed on the cushions in a much less elegant fashion, leaning against the back of the couch as if his bones had completely liquidized. Once seated, Deborah watched his eyes drift shut as his head drifted down towards his chest before snapping back up with a sharp inhale as he forced himself to stay awake.

True to her word, Jenny returned quickly with the first aid box in tow, placing it on the couch beside Tommy. For a brief moment, Jenny's mouth opened as if to speak, and Deborah felt sure she was about to ask her to take care of Tommy's wounds. Instead, Jenny closed her mouth and shook her head. "Hang on just a second, I'll be right back." Without another word, Jenny ducked into the kitchen, letting the door close behind her. The heavy silence returned as they waited, but a slight relief came over Deborah as she realized Tommy had finally stopped shivering.

The front door opened a few minutes later, bringing with it the heavy sound of rain and a peal of thunder and jolting Tommy out of a near doze once again. He blinked the sleep from his eyes and glanced towards the door and the soggy deputy dripping on the wooden floor. Deputy Bennett removed his hat and coat, hanging them up on a nearby coat rack to dry. Then he walked over to the couch on the opposite side and took a seat himself.

With a heavy sigh, the deputy spoke. "I'm sorry I have to do this, but it's procedure. I'm sure both of you kids are awful tired-"

"-So ask me instead." Jenny stood in the doorway to the kitchen. She walked over to the deputy, standing up so straight she almost looked like a queen holding court. "I'm more awake, you can get my story first, and it will give Deborah and Tommy a chance to catch their breath." She walked over to the other couch and picked up the first aid kit. "First of all though, I need to take care of this properly. I can answer questions while I work."

Without waiting for the deputy to respond, Jenny sat down next to Tommy, on the side by his wounded arm. She opened the kit, unpacking the gauze and disinfectant, before turning to the makeshift bandage tied around his bicep. The knot was tight and slick with blood and rainwater, but Jenny worked at it until it released, the torn and bloody remains of Tommy's sleeve falling to the couch by his arm. Along with the loss of pressure came a rush of blood as the wound reopened, and Tommy flinched away from Jenny's touch with a hiss of pain. Quickly, she covered the wound with a gauze pad, soaked with the antiseptic spray. This time, Tommy's gasp of pain was louder, and he nearly succeeded in yanking his arm away, but Jenny held tight with a stern look on her face, then began firmly wrapping the gauze in place with a roll of bandages.

As she wrapped, she began to relate her tale. Like Deborah, Jenny had started off the evening at the campsite with the other counselors, and likewise had run blindly away upon witnessing Rob's murder. Instead of running towards Evergreen camp, however, Jenny had struck out in the direction of the barn, hiding in the shadows of trees and ducking behind rocks as she ran. The barn didn't have any good places to hide really, so she turned her steps towards the slightly more secure lodge. Chad had evidently had the same idea, and she had found him quaking under a bed from fear. Shortly afterwards Kenny had shown up, followed by Adam and AJ who had just come from investigating some of the cars. When they figured out that the only usable car was Chad's, they split up in search of parts.

Not long after that, Deborah and Tommy had joined the group, and their stories were largely the same for a while, save for perspective. It wasn't until Jason showed up that their stories split again. Jenny had hidden in the basement of the house, but she'd definitely heard the commotion overhead. It wasn't until after they left that she re-emerged, and set about making a plan. She couldn't easily help them with fixing the phone, but she figured she could at least make a few distractions for Jason. And so she did, collecting any items she could find that made noise (including some more of the contraband fireworks someone had smuggled into the camp) and loudly turning on radios in some of the cabins. She messed with the generators, turning on lights or throwing things into the broken sections to make them spark. Once or twice she nearly got caught, but managed to escape by a hair before finally retreating to the lodge again. She'd been all set to have a final stand there... but Jason never came. The appearance of Deputy Bennett had startled her quite a bit, but she'd pointed him in the right direction, and from that point on she'd waited at the lodge for their return.

Her story was long and precise, and continued well after Tommy's arm was bandaged. Tommy himself was clearly flagging, dozing off a few times during her story, and Deborah wasn't much better. It wasn't until Jenny finished her story, disappeared into the kitchen, then reappeared with a mug of coffee that she placed in Tommy's hands that he looked awake enough to know what was going on. Before even waiting for her to ask if he needed cream or sugar, Tommy had downed several mouthfuls of the hot, bitter drink, then leaned back against the couch again, blinking. Jenny soon returned with mugs for Deborah and the Deputy as well, and the mood in the room gradually relaxed.

Until the front door opened, at least. A gust of wind swept through the room, bringing with it a clinging dampness and a slightly pudgy man in his mid thirties, wearing a police officer's uniform that seemed oddly out of place on him. He took off his hat, shaking it sharply away from his body, not yet noticing the people on the couches.

"Man, some weather," he muttered more to himself than anything, finally looking at the couches and spotting Deputy Bennett. "Okay, Cecil, this had better be good, I've got as many people as I could get out here and I know we'd all like to be back home and out of this storm." The man walked over, and his eyes lit on Tommy. Instantly he frowned and stalked closer. "I should have known you were involved in all this, _Jarvis_." He spat the name like it tasted bad.

Tommy's eyes had widened ever so slightly when he saw the sheriff enter, and he stood somewhat shakily, half-finished mug still in his hand. "How's that mail-order scope working for 'ya?" he asked, mockingly, his light tone not quite hiding the shakiness in his voice. Even tired as he was, at his full six-foot height, Tommy loomed several intimidating inches over the sheriff's head, but the man wasn't having it.

"How many people did you kill this time, _Jason_?" he asked, sneering. There was a hardness to his eyes that spoke of some bitter grudge, one Deborah could only guess at.

The late night, coupled with the prolonged stress and added caffeine was enough to make Tommy into a powder keg of emotions. "Look, I didn't kill _anyone_!" he snapped angrily. "And you know it too! I came here to _help_!" His shoulders hunched and his free hand clenched, but before he could do something stupid, he felt a hand on his arm, pulling him gently away. That light touch brought about an involuntary flinch, but when he looked down it was only Deborah, leaning forward from her seat on the couch and staring at him with tired, worried eyes. Tommy pressed his lips together into a thin, straight line, glaring at Sheriff Cologne's face one more time before returning to the couch.

Across from them, the deputy stood up. "I know you're not gonna believe me, Rick, but I have a lot of doubt that _any_ of these kids killed anyone tonight."

"You don't know-" Sheriff Cologne began, but Deputy Bennett continued.

"It doesn't matter _how_ crazy you think he is, there's no way he managed to stab a branch through a girl's chest and hang her on a tree with it. I'm _telling_ you, there's something more here." The sheriff glared at Tommy, but didn't continue the argument. Instead he looked back at the deputy again.

"We would have been over here sooner, but a couple of kids showed up at the station, babbling about something going on over here and slowed us up."

Deborah sat forward, her eyes wide. "Was it a boy and a girl? A-and was the boy blond and wearing really preppy clothes? And did the girl have streaks in her hair?"

"Yeah, that's them," Sheriff Cologne said with a nod. "Figured if we got three reports all in a few hours there might be something up." Beside Deborah, Tommy exhaled, long and low, sounding almost like a growl. She wasn't happy with the Sheriff's choices either, but it seemed like Tommy especially had an issue with the Sheriff not taking things seriously. Sheriff Cologne turned to look at the deputy. "The paramedics are on their way, but we should check the grounds first. Do we have information on who was here tonight?"

Jenny stepped into the room from the kitchen, carrying another mug of coffee. "I can give you a list. And... we took photos earlier today. They haven't been developed yet, but they might be able to help identify the... _bodies_." She offered the mug to the sheriff, and he took it with a nod. "There's cream and sugar on the counter in the kitchen. I'll go get the film for you." She headed for the stairs to find the camera, while the sheriff left for the kitchen to fix his coffee.

Deborah leaned closer to Tommy, who was sitting on the couch beside her looking as weary as a nearly-deflated balloon. "I take it you have a history with-" she nodded towards the door hiding the sheriff from view, "-him?" Her voice was soft, barely audible at all, but Tommy looked over at her.

"You could say so," Tommy replied, his voice equally soft. "He's had a vendetta against me since the last time Jason showed up. Was convinced I was behind the murders, and he ended up being the only officer to survive. He never even _saw_ Jason. I think he still believes I'm dangerous somehow, even though it was proved I was innocent." He sighed. "I don't like him."

"Don't blame you," Deborah said. The door to the kitchen opened abruptly and she sat up, as if trying to hide that she'd been talking to Tommy. "Sir, I saw some of the bodies tonight." Sheriff Cologne's eyebrows raised over the top of his mug. Deborah dug around in the pocket of Tommy's coat, coming up with the folded map. "Here, this is where you should start looking." One by one she pointed out the locations she'd last seen or heard from her friends: outside the barn, outside the lodge, the big cabin to the north of Higgins camp, and the path leading down to the docks by Blair's Cove. The only locations she wasn't sure of were Rob's body, since it hadn't been at the campsite the last she saw, and Vanessa's. "You... might want to drag the lake. I don't think Vanessa made it," she murmured. The sheriff took the map, circling the areas she'd indicated in pen, then put it into his pocket.

"You can go supervise the search," Deputy Bennett said. "I'll stay here with the kids until the paramedics arrive. These two-" he indicated Tommy and Deborah with his finger, "-are gonna need a ride to the hospital for some medical attention." Beside her, Deborah could see Tommy's jaw clench when the deputy mentioned the hospital, and the muscles on his neck tensed. Fear perhaps? Bad memories? She didn't want to risk asking, not publically like this and certainly not when she knew it could easily be a touchy subject. Cautiously, she slipped a hand over to rest it gently on the back of his fist, clenched on his leg. Again, Tommy flinched, but his hand relaxed after a few moments. He didn't move to take her hand, but he didn't brush it aside either, instead letting it rest overtop of his while he stared off at nothing in particular.

It seemed like ages as they waited for the ambulance to arrive, but it was likely only a few minutes. Deputy Bennett continued questioning Jenny in the surprisingly un-broken office while Deborah and Tommy stayed in the large, main room to wait. The news that there was coffee in the kitchen had gotten out apparently, and a few bedraggled officers wandered in for a cup themselves, before continuing on with their jobs. Meanwhile, the chance to rest had reminded Deborah just how very sore she was all over, and the throbbing of her leg was a constant drain on her attention span, and she supposed Tommy must have been just as bad if not worse. Not to mention it was an hour or two past midnight, and she wasn't used to staying up so late. In fact, it took a moment or two for her to realize the paramedics had actually arrived, and her noticing them at all was mainly due to Tommy tensing up like he was bracing for impact on the couch next to her.

The paramedics were quick to notice the bandages and bloody clothing, and were preparing to shuffle them off to the hospital for further treatment when Tommy planted his feet and refused to move. "My truck. It's parked off the road by uh, Evergreen I think. I'm not leaving it here." It was clearly something on his mind, but Deborah suspected it was also a stalling tactic. He _really_ didn't want to be in that ambulance.

"I can drive it to the hospital for you," Jenny said, appearing in the door to the small side office. "I can get a cab home from there, and the deputy said I'm allowed to go home."

Tommy was clearly reluctant, but dug the keys out of the jacket he was carrying and tossed them over to her. "Don't crash it."

Jenny smiled. "Believe it or not, I'm actually a _good_ driver," she teased. It seemed to placate Tommy a bit, and he let himself be lead out into the rainy night towards the ambulance.

* * *

The ride to the hospital was uneventful, but tense. The only thing that seemed to keep Tommy from dissolving into some sort of traumatic episode was Deborah's hand constantly on his. Still, his eyes stared at nothing a lot, and his body was coiled up like a spring, ready to bolt or fight whenever the moment arose. It probably didn't help much that there was a police car following them along the way.

Then came the hospital, and everything blurred into a haze of clean white walls and floors and ceilings, and bustling nurses and enough paperwork to make anyone cross-eyed. Medical data, home address, name, birthdate, on and on with questions that Deborah was hardly in a state to respond to, but somehow she managed to complete it. And yet Tommy was done before her. She'd expected him to struggle, what with how tired and stressed he was, but he wrote out the forms with an almost mechanical precision. Clearly it wasn't a new experience for him.

Whether it was the late hour or the fact that Forest Green was honestly a very sleepy little town outside of the occasional mass murder, there were surprisingly few people waiting in the Emergency Room, and the policeman with them seemed to bump the two up to a higher priority on the list. That's when they separated them, each to different rooms, with the officer following Deborah. He wasn't Deputy Bennett, and honestly Deborah would have preferred the man she was more familiar with than a replacement. The new officer was very crisp and businesslike, with little of the friendly warmth she'd seen in the other man. Predictably, he had a whole list of questions to ask, about every minute detail she might remember from the night.

Once he left, however, a nurse showed up to look her over and take care of her injuries. Or more specifically, her leg. She nearly cried out when they took the bandage off, the pain flaring up like a white-hot sun around her ankle. Then a little while later, a prick, followed by a growing feeling of nothing, as they numbed her leg and stitched the wound back together before bandaging it back up. After being given instructions not to put much weight on it for several days, and given a crutch to use along with a prescription for pain medication and more instructions that Deborah was too foggy to fully remember, she was allowed to leave. One of the nurses walked her down the long, identical corridors back to the waiting room, the trip blending into a haze of white in her mind.

"Deborah! You're all right!" It took several seconds for her brain to process that the words hadn't actually been in English, before she found herself staring into her mother's face. Her father stood nearby, not saying much of anything, but from years of experience she could recognize relief when she saw it. Her mother, on the other hand, continued to fuss over her in Korean that she wasn't _quite_ following in her tired state. Her mother _always_ switched to Korean when she was stressed. Deborah did her best to answer her mother's questions, explaining a little about the chaotic night and the bear trap and reassuring her mother that yes, she _was_ actually fine and just really needed to sleep. Meanwhile, she managed to get a little bit of information as to why they were there in the first place.

It seemed the hospital staff had been told to call them, via the deputy who had questioned her, and knowing how far the distance was back to her parents' house, her time in the hospital must have been longer than she thought. That or her father had broken a few laws on the way. Either way it was a wonderful surprise, especially with her car having been damaged earlier.

As her parents indicated they should get to the hotel she'd been staying at, Deborah realized something. She hadn't even gotten to say goodbye to Tommy yet, and after that _moment_ earlier, she needed a bit of clarity. She was all set to go hobbling off down the halls searching for him when he showed up at the door to the waiting room, his eyes distant.

"Ha-yun! We're leaving!" Her mother insisted in Korean, deliberately using her middle name to catch her daughter's attention.

"Just a minute!" Deborah replied, making her way over to Tommy as quickly as possible. He stopped when she approached, looking like he'd just woken up from a dream. Then his eyes caught sight of her crutch and newly-bandaged leg. She gave him a wobbly smile. "Stitches," she mumbled.

He pointed to his bandaged bicep, his movements clumsy and stiff. "Stitches." Both laughed for a second, tight, awkward chuckles, but a laugh nonetheless.

"We match!" Deborah said, the cheer in her voice sounding hollow and forced. Besides, it wasn't what she was over here for. "So, um, about earlier... you _really_ meant all that?"

Tommy stared down at her, eyes still looking like grey-blue fog, but he gave a small nod. "Yeah," he replied. "I did."

"It wasn't just a prank, or a lie to make me go away?"

He shook his head. _Well, one question answered at least,_ she thought. She chewed on her lip for a second or two before speaking again. "Well, I just thought that, uh, well, we should meet up sometime this week. To make sure each other is doing okay, right?"

Tommy still looked awfully stiff and uncomfortable, but it could easily be just the hospital bothering him. "That sounds good, yeah."

Deborah fumbled in the pocket of her jeans, coming up with a damp notebook and a slightly broken pencil stub. "W-well, we need to know how to contact each other, right? I'm staying at the hotel in town for the time being, so I don't know if you can call me properly there but um... can I have your phone number so I can call you to set things up later?" She offered the notebook and pencil to him.

Tommy stared at them like she'd handed him a live fish, but took them gingerly in his hand after a momentary pause. Carefully he wrote down a number on the paper, tearing the sheet off and handing it to her, then absently putting the notebook and pencil in his own pocket. Neither of them really seemed to notice, however, especially not with Deborah's parents calling for her from the doorway. Deborah put the paper in her pocket and took a few steps towards the door.

"Okay, I'll... see you later then!" she said, with a small wave. She didn't notice Tommy's small, uncertain wave as she followed her parents to their car and rode off to her hotel. She was barely even able to get to her hotel room and put on her pajamas before she succumbed to exhaustion, sprawled out on the hotel bed, fast asleep


	12. Epilogue

The crunch of tires on gravel echoed through the woods as Tommy's teal pickup pulled up the driveway to the cabin. It had taken longer for them to let him go than he'd expected, and every second had seemed to stretch on into infinity as he was examined and poked and stitched until the doctors decided he was suitable. Not to mention the endless questions from the officer who'd accompanied them. Luckily, Jenny was as good as her word, and the truck had been waiting outside, the keys stashed in the glove box. In the back of his mind, something told Tommy that he really shouldn't be driving, what with how tired and sore he was and his left arm still being a bit numb, but he _had_ to get home. Who cared if he drove the whole way one handed? He slid out of the car and trudged up to the cabin, keys jingling in his hand as he walked. Instinctively, he reached out and turned the doorknob.

It opened in his hand. A nagging part of his brain reminded him that it should be locked. _Had he forgotten to lock it again_? That part of his brain had to contend with the foggy haze of exhaustion and ultimately lost. Keys and jacket were tossed haphazardly on a chair-he'd get them later after he'd slept. With one hand using the railing to pull himself up the stairs, he staggered up to his room.

It was all he could do to just get undressed; even pulling off his shirt made his ribs groan in protest and he knew if his arm wasn't numbed, the cut on his arm would be screaming. Somehow he managed to strip down to his boxers before the exhaustion took over. He was asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow.

* * *

For the first time in ages, Tommy didn't dream. At least, if he did dream, he didn't remember it. He slept so deeply that waking was like trying to swim up from the bottom of the ocean. Slowly he drifted back to consciousness, his eyes feeling like they were coated in lead. It was then he realized that something was touching his shoulder, and it certainly wasn't his blanket. It felt like a _hand_.

The first reaction in his mind was to punch, to lash out and get away, but even simply opening his eyes was almost too hard to manage. He'd never be able to move in time to stop an attack. But there was a voice too, one he hadn't heard in person in... well, it had to be a few years at least. "Tommy? C'mon, sleepyhead, you gonna sleep all day?"

Opening his eyes was rough, but talking coherently was impossible. The most he could manage was a slightly annoyed moan. That he regretted very fast, as his throat and neck protested greatly. The hand still hadn't left and he could feel the person shaking his shoulder, sending ripples of pain through his arm and chest. "Wake up, Tommy, it's time to get up!" He groaned again, more annoyed this time, but forced his eyes open.

"G'way Trish," he mumbled, his voice still raspy with sleep and the results of Jason's attempts to throttle him. "Wha'd'you want?" Trish shouldn't even _be_ here, she'd moved away shortly after he'd been shipped off to the hospital after their mother died. She'd gone to live with their father, as far as he'd remembered, but Tommy hadn't been exactly in a position to know what was going on. But here she was, large as life, pestering him to get up almost as if he was still eleven years old and nothing had changed.

"I come to visit you and you're not even out of bed at 11 am!" Trish said, mock scolding him. Her face grew serious though, and her words as well. "I had to come check on you. There was a news report of another incident out here and... I guess I figured you'd find some way to get mixed up in it. I tried calling a few times but I didn't get an answer so I drove over." She put her hands on her hips. "I never thought you missed those calls because you were _sleeping_."

"Oh." It was all he could think to say. He still wasn't fully awake yet, but the further he got from sleep, the more his body ached all over and kept him from being able to concentrate properly. He had no witty retorts or smooth explanations of why he was sleeping so late. Through half-focused, nearsighted eyes Tommy could just barely see Trish's blurry face grow worried.

"Tommy? Are you okay?" That was a tone Tommy recognized all too well in Trish's voice. She crouched down beside his bed so she could get a better look at him, and Tommy could see her frown deepen now. Trish took a deep, slow breath, then reached out a hand towards his face, stopping before she actually touched him. "Tommy, what happened?" With a soft groan, Tommy squeezed his eyes shut. Of course she'd notice the cuts all across his face. Thankfully they were shallow and healing, due largely to Deborah's quick work with the antiseptic, but he couldn't blame his sister for being afraid for his safety.

"I'm sorry, Trish," he said after a few moments, his voice low and weary.

Trish made a small sound that he took as an expression of distress. "Oh, Tommy, you've got to stop this." She reached her hand out towards his hair, brushing her fingers through it in an attempt to tame the messy curls. Tommy made no effort to move away, though he couldn't move much at all really. He _hated_ worrying Trish, but internally he was glad she'd come over. Even grown up as he was, things felt a little more stable with his big sister around. "How bad is it?" she asked softly.

He took a minute or two to reply, readying himself with a deep breath and trying to remember everything that had happened. "I've had worse," he mumbled, trying to pull his mouth into a smile and failing miserably. Then he shifted a bit to get his right arm free-talking was hard with his throat so scratchy, he'd need the ability to gesture. He pointed to the cuts on his face first with a small frown, then brought his hand down to his neck to point out the violently purpling bruise around it. Nearby, Trish sucked a breath in through her teeth at the sight. Tommy still had his blanket up over his shoulder and didn't feel like moving it, so he continued with words instead. "Bruised and cracked ribs, and a minor cut on my arm. Needed stitches but it wasn't that bad."

" _Stitches_ ," Trish repeated, and if Tommy had felt less like vaguely conscious roadkill, he might have laughed. She sounded so much like their mother just then. " _Stitches_ , Tommy. I don't care if you've 'had worse,' you need to stop doing this for your own health!"

"'Promise I don't look for trouble," Tommy rasped. Trish shook her head.

"Well, first thing's first, you need breakfast. I'll make it, do you think you can handle getting up?" Honestly, Tommy wasn't sure he could actually stand upright, but he nodded nonetheless. Slowly his senses had been waking up, and even though he didn't feel hungry yet, he knew he probably needed to eat something. His muscles strained and ached as he pushed himself up into a seated position, and something in the back of his mind nagged him that he was only wearing his boxers, but it was drowned out by the reawakening pain and generally hazy state of his thoughts. Trish frowned, taking in the sight of her battered baby brother. He looked too thin like this. "When was the last time you ate?" she asked.

It took a bit of work to think back that far. "Uh... I'm not sure. I had some marshmallows at the camp?" Trish's frown deepened.

"You haven't eaten since _Friday_?"

He blinked, confused by her tone. "It was only last night-"

"Tommy, it's _Sunday_." Trish's voice was straightforward; she didn't sound like she was joking. Tommy stared at her, mouth agape, not certain if he truly believed her. However, very loud gurgle from his very empty stomach put an end to anything he had to say, and Trish offered a hand to help him get up. "Get a shirt on or something and come downstairs; I'll make pancakes."

Tommy watched her leave, sitting on the side of his bed and feeling oddly detached from everything. Sunday. He'd slept a whole day, somehow. At least he felt somewhat rested for a change, which was a nice if unusual feeling. The gnawing emptiness of his stomach made him stand finally, but he dawdled on the way to his dresser. He wandered over to the table covered with latex masks and painting supplies, picking up a soft cloth and gently wiping down the masks to get rid of any accumulated dust. It was harder than he was used to, since with how much his left arm hurt to move he couldn't steady the masks as he cleaned. Still, it was something familiar, grounding. With one final affectionate tap to the scrunched-up face of his old alien mask, Tommy walked over to his dresser.

Pulling out the drawers was another challenge with his nearly useless left arm, followed by the equally difficult challenge of putting on his clothes once he got them. He'd found a shirt like Trish asked, though he didn't bother with buttoning up the lightweight red cotton shirt. He even found a pair of well-worn sweatpants that he only wore on days when he didn't feel human enough to care about his appearance, or needed to wear something he didn't care about keeping clean. He even dug out his old glasses, since he didn't feel like dealing with contacts today. He still wasn't sure how he'd managed to take them out before sleeping without injuring himself. Once dressed, he wandered downstairs and into the cozy little kitchen where his sister was pouring some pancake mix into a frying pan.

"You got a couple of messages on your answering machine," she said without looking up.

A sinking realization hit Tommy. "I didn't show up for work yesterday-"

"Yeah, they noticed. You didn't get fired or anything, I think your boss just called to find out how you were doing." Trish pulled out a drawer, hunting through it for a spatula. Tommy edged by her, heading for the refrigerator along the back wall. His throat was still like sandpaper when he talked, and thankfully there was still orange juice that hadn't gone bad yet. He put the jug on the counter and went hunting for a glass.

"I'll call later today, let him know what happened. Anything else?"

Trish flipped a pancake. "Some girl called, I think. Said something about checking in with you and having found another place to stay? She left a number I think. And a name too, uh, Donna or something like that?"

Tommy nearly choked on his orange juice. He swallowed the mouthful he had, stifling a cough. " _Deborah_?" He asked, his voice straining and his cheeks flushed from coughing.

"Yeah that's it! Someone you know?"

He pulled out one of the tall stools and sat down. "Yeah, I just met her the other day. We said we'd meet up sometime soon." A whisper of doubt blew through his mind, reminding him of the last time he'd let someone into his life. A whisper of blonde hair, red jackets, wild eyes, bad decisions and so much lingering guilt. Worry gnawed at his mind- he'd genuinely felt _something_ around Deborah on Friday night, and his instinct said to pursue it. But after last time, well... he wasn't sure if he was ready for that again.

"Oh really?" Trish asked, an impish "I-just-caught-my-brother-red-handed" smile on her face as she looked at him.

"Look, I don't know what's going to happen yet, okay?" Tommy replied, defensive. The smile on his sister's face faltered a bit, and she shrugged and turned back to the pancakes.

"Suit yourself. Just don't leave her hanging, okay?" Tommy didn't reply, merely stared into the opaque glass of orange juice. He should really find some pain killers, everything ached so badly at this point that he was getting snappish. At the same time he didn't want to take anything on an empty stomach. His musings were interrupted by a plate sliding into view with a golden-brown pancake on it.

"Eat up, there's more where that came from," Trish said with a smile, putting the butter and a jug of syrup on the table. "You can tell me all about what happened Friday night while you eat." She began pouring more batter into the pan.

Tommy had wasted no time buttering the hot pancake, and was in the middle of adding syrup to it. "C'mon, Trish, I haven't eaten since _Friday_!" he complained. Trish laughed.

"All right, but _after_ that, you have to tell me what happened."

"Only if you promise you won't get mad," Tommy said around a mouthful of pancake.

"Promise, I won't get mad." Looking at her brother like this, sitting at the breakfast nook with sticky syrup on his cheek, his hair unkempt and his glasses slipping down his long nose, he looked surprisingly like he used to, before everything went to pieces so long ago. She slipped around to sit beside him, leaning in to bump her shoulder gently against his. "Hey, I'm really glad you're okay, you know."

Tommy leaned into her touch, not wanting to touch her with hands that had somehow managed to get syrup on them. "Me too. And I'm glad you came over."

Trish ruffled his hair. "Anytime, Tommy. Now eat up, I want to know what happened!" Tommy groaned and shook his head with a smile, but cleaned up his plate before pushing it across the counter for well-deserved seconds, the lingering darkness in his life momentarily pushed away by the warm, healing glow of home.

 

**-FIN-**


End file.
